It was May 25th, 1965. It was a rematch of the previous year's title bout, with Ali as the defending champion. The fight began with the two heavyweights dancing around the middle of the ring, mostly throwing jabs at each other. In fact, Ali only got one really solid punch in before the infamous "phantom punch" that sent Liston to the floor and the fight into history. Ali was backpedaling as Liston advanced. He threw a quick right cross to Liston's left cheek and dropped the former champ. Liston rolled around for a few seconds, attempted to stand up, fell back down, and then finally managed to get up and stay on his feet. He walked around uneasily for a few seconds as Ali threw a few more jabs and punches before the referee called the match. Then the celebration began in Ali's corner with Liston looking on.
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| The aftermath of the Phantom Punch © Neil Leifer, Sports Illustrated |
The problem is, the hit that felled Liston left some spectators scratching their heads. Yes, Ali was a heavyweight champion. Any punch from his powerful fist was bound to hurt, but the specific hit in question did not exactly seem to be knockout material. Check out a slow motion video of the phantom punch for yourself. Even Ali seemed surprised to see Liston go down so easily, as he was already in the motion of throwing another punch with his left as Liston was falling to the floor. So, naturally, the questions stemming from Liston's suspicious fall have led to the conspiracy of the Phantom Punch.
Of course, there are sports historians and fans alike who think the fight was totally legitimate, and Ali, who was 11 years younger than Liston, was just the better boxer. On the other hand, a lot of people believe there was something more at play on that spring night half a century ago, and there are a couple of different theories as to what really happened.
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| Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X photo from The New York Times |
The first one deals with Muhammad Ali's ties to the Black Muslim community. The 1965 title fight was Ali's first since joining the nation of Islam and changing his name, although it had been a little over a year since then. In that time, the Muslim community had split under the leadership of Malcolm X on one side and Elijah Muhammad (along with Ali) on the other. After Malcolm X's assassination earlier in 1965, there was fear that Ali would be killed in revenge. The small venue in Lewiston, Maine where the fight was held was purportedly chosen because of fear that there would be an attempt on Ali's life during the fight, and several other venues had turned down the chance to host the match.¹ Liston later claimed that he took a dive because he didn't want anything to do with Ali's ties to the Black Muslim community, and was possibly worried about getting hit by a stray bullet.² However, Liston changed his story about how the fight went down several times over the years.¹
Another spur of this theory claims that Liston was visited by two black Muslims before the fight who told him they would kill him if he didn't lose. This is according to one of Liston's assistant trainers who came forward years later, but Liston never spoke of this occurrence.¹
Another theory says Liston threw the fight for different reasons. Liston had known connections to the mob. He had worked for mobster John Vitale as a muscleman and chauffeur, and Frank "Blinky" Palermo, another mobster, was Liston's manager. In the first Ali-Liston fight in 1964, Liston was the heavy favorite with 5-1 odds, until late money bet on Ali slashed the odds to 2-1.¹ This change in odds presumably meant that the mob would be able to profit more from the fight, which of course was won by Ali, taking the heavyweight title from Liston.
As accusations began to fly after the 1965 fight, Liston denied a fix due to gambling. Ali would not have known anything about a fix because the mob would likely only make arrangements with the losing boxer. While Liston did not really benefit financially from the second fight, he may have agreed to take the loss for the gain of the mobsters in order to pay off debts. However, there is no substantial evidence of Liston having any mob debts.¹ There is no hard evidence to prove any foul play concerning Liston and his mob associates in this case, but the suspicious circumstances surrounding both fights only add fuel to the conspiracy fire.
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| Frank "Blinky" Palermo photo from BoxRec.com |
Many years later, "Blinky" Palermo was sent to prison on unrelated charges of tampering with boxing matches. Before his death in 1996, a Sports Illustrated reporter quoted him as saying, "The trouble with boxing today is that legitimate businessmen are horning in on our game."¹ Palermo managed Liston for twelve fights throughout his career, so the odds are fairly high that there was some tampering going on at some point. Whether or not Liston took a dive in the 1965 title fight on Blinky's behalf is still unknown.
Let's come back to the moment of the phantom punch. If Liston was trying to throw the fight, he would have to be a pretty good actor right? Well, the way he fell brought on some more suspicion. He initially fell forward towards Ali, then rolled onto his back and then slowly to his stomach. After attempting to stand up, he dramatically fell backward, throwing his hands into the air as he did. When he finally stood and the fight was resumed, Liston never got another punch in. He only put his gloves up to shield his face, and the fight was called seconds later. Was his dramatic fall just a performance, or did the hit really send him reeling that badly? For the sake of argument, it is not out of the question that Ali gave Liston a concussion, and that led to his bizarre behavior. After all, Ali did (apparently) punch him in the face.
While some fans in the crowd claimed to never even see the Phantom Punch, others described it as a perfectly timed hit by the 23-year-old Ali. You can watch the full fight for yourself here. Although the video only shows the punch with Liston's back to the camera, it appears by his reaction that Ali's fist definitely connected. How hard, nobody can really say. So it is possible that Ali won the fight fair and square. Or, we may be able to blame Malcolm X or Blinky Palermo for this conspiracy.
¹ Buzzfeed Sports - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur7VajVUG8w
² How Stuff Works - https://people.howstuffworks.com/10-plausible-sports-conspiracy-theories1.htm
³ The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/may/22/muhammad-ali-phantom-punch-sonny-liston-1965
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