Word: liston
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...bell for the first round had barely sounded when Clay quickly banged a right off Listen's ear and went hippity-hopping around the ring, effortlessly slipping Sonny's ponderous punches. Clay hung his arms at his sides; Liston attached his arches to the canvas. The pursuit grew slower and slower, stopped altogether when Clay unloaded a solid right to Listen's head. Straining to reach Cassius with a left hook, Listen bent forward and swung. From somewhere in the general direction of his right hip, Clay flicked a right-hand chop that traveled no more than...
...yellow bum!" Under Maine rules, Timekeeper Francis McDonough could have delayed the count for the knockdown until Clay went to a neutral corner. But he didn't. He ticked off the seconds by pounding on the ring mat with a wooden mallet. When McDonough reached twelve, he quit. Liston was still on the floor, and Clay was still in the middle of the ring. Unable to pull Cassius away, Referee Jersey Joe Walcott, who seemed even more confused than the spectators, gave up and walked away. He never got Clay to a neutral corner; he never picked...
When he saw the tape, Cassius had a new story. The punch that flattened Liston, he insisted, was his secret "anchor punch"-so named because it anchors opponents to the floor. The punch was taught to him by a darkface comedian named Stepin Fetchit, who learned it from Jack Johnson, first of the great Negro champions. Said Clay: "It's a chop, so fast you can't see it. It's karate. It's got a twist to it. Just one does...
That was ridiculous. And so was Liston's explanation. Said Sonny, whose half of the fighters' purse comes to a cool $600,000: "I've been hit harder. A couple of times." Why did he fall down? "I was stunned." And why didn't he get back up? "Just lost my balance, I guess...
...investigation. But fix and fraud are not synonymous. The truth was simply that a big, tough, fast young boxer hit a woozy old stiff in the face. Nobody will ever be sure just how hard Cassius Clay's punch was, but it was hard enough to make Sonny Liston call it a payday...