Monday Milestone: First Minute First Round

"Clay comes out to meet Liston, and Liston starts to retreat
If Liston goes back an inch farther he'll end up in a ringside seat
Clay swings with a left
Clay swings with a right
Just look at young Cassius carry the fight"
– The taunting words of Cassius Clay ahead of the Liston/Clay title fight

This Week in History:
1965, May 25
In a heavyweight championship title fight, Cassius Clay knocks down Sonny Liston after only 48 seconds

“Get up and fight, sucker”

Cassius Clay stood over the fallen Sonny Liston as he lay on the canvas. He did not retreat to the neutral corner. Referee Jersey Joe Walcott was confused. Ten seconds passed. Twenty seconds passed….

To get some context to this extraordinary bout, the Milestone travels back to 1962 to when Sonny Liston became heavyweight champion of the world, beating Floyd Patterson for the title.  A controversial character with strong links to America’s underworld, his unsavoury character was criticised time and again with huge debate surrounded whether Liston should even fight Patterson.

When he did, (and beat him convincingly) he was anything but a crowd favourite. When he fought Patterson a second time in 1963 and knocked him out again, and defending his title, he was booed.

Meanwhile a young Louisville underdog fighter named Cassius Clay with fast hands and an even faster mouth drew Liston for the world title in early 1964. Clay dominated Liston for six rounds. Liston did not return for the seventh, allegedly due to an injured shoulder. Still conspiracy theories abound as to why Liston’s camp threw the towel. Was he was scared? Was he hungover? Did he throw the fight?

We don’t know. But by the time these two met in a rematch in Lewiston Maine, the atmosphere was electric. The fight was worth $25 million in today’s terms, and was full of controversy.  Just forty-eight seconds into this bout, Liston hit the canvas. The ‘phantom punch’ apparently good enough to fell a former champion, was so fast it was missed by most sitting ringside. But slowing down the footage – it’s incredulous that the offending punch alone could knock the Big Bear down.

Yet there he was, sprawled on the canvas whilst Clay, who had renamed himself Muhammad Ali, stood Sonny Liston, vehemently screaming at him, in what became one of the most famous sporting pictures of the twentieth century. Confusion reigned. Clay did not retreat to the neutral corner. Boxing journalist Nat Fleischer climbed into the ring to tell referee Walcott that ten seconds were up. Surely that was outside the rules too. When Liston could barely stagger groggily to his feat, the fight was declared over.   Not including the counts and chaos in the aftermath, this multi-million dollar fight hadn’t lasted a minute.

Was it a dive? Liston was involved with the Mafia, so it’s feasible he could have tanked. There’s also a rumour that he admitted years later that he went down in fear of retaliation from black Muslims. Liston died of a drug overdose in 1970, so we will never know. But given the seedy underbelly of his existence, it wouldn’t be surprising.

But that night in Maine it took just forty-eight seconds for the new Muhammad Ali to raise his fists in the air as the continuing heavyweight champion of the world, in one of the most extraordinary bouts in history.

 

Milestone Five: Most famous heavyweight title bouts

5.  1935 – James J Braddock defeats Max Baer as a huge 10-1 underdog, popularised in the Russell Crowe film ‘Cinderella Man’.

4.  1996 – Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson, became controversial when Tyson, sank his teeth into Holyfield’s ear, biting a piece off.

3. 1975 – Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier fight in the Phillipines in the ‘Thrilla in Manila’ as the climax in the bitter rivalry between Ali and Frazier

2. 1974 – Muhammad Ali and George Foreman – the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ was the first African bout in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo).

1. 1970 – Fight of the Century – Muhammad Ali (26-0) in his first fight back from exile as a symbol of anti-establishment took on pro-war Joe Frazier (31-0) at Madison Square Garden, where Frazier would win on points in an incredibly gruelling fight.