Sonny Liston 1959 vs Muhammad Ali 1964

I don't want to put too much effort, because I know that my respected colleagues will definitely bet on Clay, but I will quote the words of Manna Steward, who believed that Clay could not beat the best Liston.
Remember that when they met, Sonny was more interested in the casino than the ring. Other than that, he only fought a few rounds in 3 or 4 years. very little. His nocturnal lifestyle completely absorbed him, and if we add a probable shoulder injury, we have a picture of a much weaker Liston than in 1958. Regardless, I thought the fight with Clay was pretty good and Sonny was competitive

 

I don’t think Liston was too far out of his prime in their actual fight, but here, I think Ali outboxes him and wins a clear decision with Liston winning 3-4 rounds.

 

Any iteration of Ali from Miami Beach Convention Center Huge Win Ali to Manila Ali beats any iteration of Liston.

 

Precisely how I see it. Although a prime for prime (Liston '59 v Ali '67) would have been a great fight but with Muhammad coming out of it a convincing winner.

 

Alì is a nightmare for every version, even the pre-stool one.

 

You know re-watching the first fight i was surprised how well Liston was doing i had it even before he quit he had his moments and Ali wasn't doing as well as many here claim (i believe judges had it even as well so I'm not crazy here) . Now some of that might because of the eye thing but i think a prime Liston who takes the fight seriously can def give an inexperienced Ali a tough fight especially the one who struggled with Doug Jones and Henry Cooper. But a more experienced Ali would probably win.

 

It's a night and day difference between the Liston who fought Ali and the one who fought Williams.

 

Ali just made him look bad because he’s the greatest, even at his absolute best, Liston is gonna look a lot worse against certain guys and a lot better against others, it’s just how style matchups are.
In the previous 2 fights, he’d done Patterson twice in a round both times.

 

It's not that Ali made him look bad, It's the fact that Liston fought less than 6 minutes or so in three years, was at minimum 34 years old, and went in with a recorded injury.

As others have mentioned in the thread, Liston also looked quite good at times against Ali, it was absolutely a close fight and dead even on the cards despite the revisionism here.

 

I don't care who wins, this would just be an amazing fight.

 

The vast majority of fighters go into fights with niggles, but they just don’t get brought up when they win, fighters have even said that they had niggles for a good chunk of their fights even ones they won.

I only just realised now that it was in-fact even on the cards, but the average scorecard on boxrec had Ali winning 4 rounds, Liston winning 1 round and 1 round being a draw, the round they had Liston winning was the round where many suspect Liston put a substance on his gloves to irritate Ali’s eyes.

 

I had it even going into 7th as well Liston def had his moments and Ali wasn't having as much success as people claim least not until Liston gassed in the 6th where Ali looked like he was taking over and then Liston quit.......

 

Brilliant breakdown of the fight:


Ali vs Liston 1 | How Ali SHOOK UP the World - Breakdown

I didn't realize that Ali had his grappling game that early as the narrator points out. He also points out how Liston was able to bully Patterson and his fast hands were of no avail.

 

It is absolutely untrue that the vast majority of fighters go into fights with "niggles" (?), and even so Liston's case was different in that he attempted to get a postponement of the bout due to the severity of the pain but the Florida boxing commission denied him. He was also seen icing his injury and resorting to physiotherapy after sessions. He also inexplicably stopped sparring weeks before the fight which prompted Dundee to remark. "Angelo Dundee challenger Clay's trainer, expressed amazement. He stated: As long as I've been in boxing, I never heard of any man quitting his sparring a week before an important fight unless he was very stale or hurt in some way" https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-irving-daily-news-texan/103574716/

"average scorecard on boxes"
I'm sorry, what?

This is a myth spread by amateurs who can't bother to do five minutes of research. The referee inspected Liston's gloves and found nothing. https://ibb.co/XyFb6Nm