sonny liston

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Boxing. Championship. Muhammad Ali vs Sonny Liston (2nd meeting). May 25, 1965. St. Dominic's Hall, Lewiston, Maine, United States. Because of the unexpected ending of the first bout, the World Boxing Council ordered a rematch, this time with Liston as challenger. The World Boxing Association disagreed, as immediate rematches were against its rules, and stripped Ali of his title. Originally scheduled for the Boston Garden in Boston, Massachusetts in November 1964, the fight was postponed six months when Ali needed emergency surgery for a strangulated hernia. Lewiston, Maine Massachusetts boxing authorities balked over allowing the rescheduled fight to go on, as a Bay State prosecutor claimed that it wasn't properly licensed. The promoters, Intercontinental Promotions, Inc. and Sports Vision, Inc., had $3.5 million (approximately $25 million in 2011 dollars) in closed-circuit TV contracts to preserve. If the fight didn't go off in Boston, it was feared that there would be no rematch between Clay and Liston and a lucrative payday would be lost. The promoters contacted promoter Sam Michael, who scheduled the bout in the St. Dominic's arena, a junior hockey rink in Lewiston, Maine, a milltown with 40,000 residents located 35 miles north from Portland on the Maine Turnpike. Lewiston is the smallest place to host a heavyweight title bout since Jack Dempsey fought Tom Gibbons in Shelby, Montana (population 3,000) in 1923. It remains the only heavyweight title fight held in the state of Maine. The second Ali-Liston fight was embraced by The Pine Tree State. Maine Governor John H. Reed announced to the press, "This fight is one of the greatest things to happen in Maine." Nevertheless, it would go down in history as a debacle. Due to the remote location (140 miles north of Boston), only 2,434 fans were present, setting the all-time record for the lowest attendance for a heavyweight championship fight. Phantom Punch The ending of the second fight remains one of the most controversial in boxing history. Midway through the first round, Liston fell to the canvas, in what many have argued was not a legitimate knockdown. Referee Jersey Joe Walcott, a former world heavyweight champion himself, appeared confused after Ali refused to retreat to a neutral corner. Instead, Ali stood over his fallen opponent, gesturing and yelling at him, "Get up and fight, sucker!" The moment was captured by ringside photographer Neil Leifer in what became one of the most iconic images in sport, chosen as the cover of the Sports Illustrated special issue, "The Century's Greatest Sports Photos". Ali then raised his fists in the air celebrating the knockdown. While Walcott tried to sort out the situation, 20 seconds passed, and by then Liston had gotten to his feet and resumed boxing. Nat Fleischer, publisher of The Ring, took it upon himself to climb into the ring and tell Walcott that as Liston had spent over 10 seconds on the canvas he had been KOed. Walcott stopped the fight — awarding Ali a first-round knockout. However, Fleischer was quite wrong in his interpretation of how the rules applied: since Clay had deliberately not gone to a neutral corner, Walcott had been correct in not counting Liston out; the actual time Liston had been down was beside the point. The counting officially begins only when a fighter is in the neutral corner. The blow that ended the match became known as "the phantom punch," so named because most people at ringside did not see it. Even Ali was unsure as to whether or not the punch connected, as footage from the event shows Ali asking his entourage "Did I hit him?" after the match. Slow motion replays show Ali connecting with a quick, chopping right to Liston's head (known as the "Anchor Punch" according to Ali) as Liston was moving toward him. In their book on Ali, Felix Dennis and Don Atyeo argued that "the blow generated enough power to lift Liston's left foot, upon which most of his weight was placed, off the canvas." Liston...