http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ap-muhammad-ali-sonny-liston-heavyweight-rematch-150111952--box.html (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ap-muhammad-ali-sonny-liston-heavyweight-rematch-150111952--box.html)
Click "view gallery" in the first photo and see the entire picture with Liston lying on his back. It became a popular poster on the walls of college students.
I remember this fight and replays from different angles. I never really saw a thundering punch. I never really saw a punch.
Quote from: SGOS on May 24, 2015, 07:48:25 PM
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ap-muhammad-ali-sonny-liston-heavyweight-rematch-150111952--box.html (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ap-muhammad-ali-sonny-liston-heavyweight-rematch-150111952--box.html)
Click "view gallery" in the first photo and see the entire picture with Liston lying on his back. It became a popular poster on the walls of college students.
I remember this fight and replays from different angles. I never really saw a thundering punch. I never really saw a punch.
I remember it well. His name was Clay then, and I hated his guts! I was riding back and forth on a school bus 40 miles one way to a JC. I offered anybody 16/1 odds on Clay. Thank goodness I had no takers! :)) My dad watch Friday Night Fights all the time, and since that was the only channel we got in those days, we did too. We watched Doug Jones and Clay duke it out, and thought Jones beat him. Coupled with his big mouth, I just did not like Clay! To say I was shocked when he KO'ed Liston would be an understatement. I did not see the fight, but I read about it--and listened to it on the radio. As time passed and I learned more about Clay, I grew to like him more and more. I now think Ali was the greatest boxer of all time.
Quote from: Mike Cl on May 24, 2015, 08:07:51 PM
I remember it well. His name was Clay then, and I hated his guts!
I know. I did too. LOL I wanted someone to knock his block off, but gradually, I changed my mind, along with just about everyone else on the planet.
Jack Johnson was the greatest fighter of all time. Clay/Ali was a game changer no doubt, but nobody could hold a candle to Johnson..and there were even more people who wanted Johnson gone when he fought..
Quote from: AllPurposeAtheist on May 24, 2015, 10:18:27 PM
Jack Johnson was the greatest fighter of all time.
I've heard that claim before, and it might be true. But other than a brief choppy black and white film fragment, I don't know much about him.
And looking back FWIW, in the 1920s, Jack Dempsey fought some guy in Shelby, Montana. I can't imagine how small that town must have been back then, so you would have thought holding a heavyweight championship fight in a town with a dirt road for main street would have been an economic disaster. And it was exactly that. A huge economic failure. Some oil guys that ran the town had a huge arena built. No one in town could afford the tickets, and hardly anyone from out of town showed up. Several town banks went bankrupt afterwards. It might even hold some kind of record for the biggest sports flop in history. It was a real "What the Hell were they thinking" event.
I'll not deny Jack Johnson was great. My favorite was Floyd Patterson. I'm not quite sure why, but I liked him and still do. Joe Louis was no slouch, either. And then there was Rocky Marciano who never lost. Didn't like him--don't know why--maybe because he beat Archie Moore, the light-heavy who fought in the heavyweight class at times.
Ali will always be the best to me simply because of how iconic, both as a boxer and as a person, he is. His influence on the civil rights movement gives me a huge bias towards him.
Quote from: Shiranu on May 25, 2015, 03:47:22 AM
Ali will always be the best to me simply because of how iconic, both as a boxer and as a person, he is. His influence on the civil rights movement gives me a huge bias towards him.
Yeah, that's one reason why I like him is because of the kind of man he became. As for not being better than Jack Johnson--how could one vote against the man who "floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee"??? And he was a poet! :)) And in my game of Boxing by Avalon Hill, Ali beat Johnson 7 out of 10 times. So, there you have it, proof positive that Ali was the best!
Manny Paquiagh (sp) was and is a great fighter..He's no heavy weight, but the man can bring it..
Quote from: AllPurposeAtheist on May 25, 2015, 02:32:55 PM
Manny Paquiagh (sp) was and is a great fighter..He's no heavy weight, but the man can bring it..
Except when he hurts his shoulder.
I suspect back before gloves there were quite a few guys who could have been champions even in this day, but that's a lot of what if..