There was alot of contraversy and a lot of problems getting both sides to get on the same page....Ali had done some promo tours and Liston supposedly had to recover for some time due to the shoulder after the first fight before negotiations even started so that was a delay in itself......

I may be mistaken on this but I beleive there was a rematch claus in the contract so Ali could not fight anyone else before he fouht Liston again....I could be wrong on that though but for some reason I remember something about that