In Lewiston Maine on May 25th, 1965 was the heavyweight boxing championship. The fight consisted of Muhammad Ali or Cassius Clay Muhaammads born name went up against Sonny Liston. Liston was beaten on February 25th, 1964 by Muhammad in the seventh round due to a shoulder injury and Sonny couldn’t continue.
“Although it is impossible ever to discount the possibility of a fix because of boxing’s still-too-intimate connection with the underworld,” according to Vault, this meant that some boxers may be talking to mobs or the mafia that can affect the outcome of the fight because of what could happen afterward to the boxer that beat a boxer who had people to harm the winning fighter for beating their guy.
“There is no shred of evidence or plausibility to support the suggestion that this was anything but an honest fight,” according to Vault, although there are allegations towards this there is no actual proof of any boxer or in the case of Muhammad having people threaten the other boxer if he didn’t let said boxer win. In the Muhammad vs Liston fight there were allegations against Muhammad that he had inside and spoke to the Mob, but later Sonny turned down the allegations that Muhammad spoke to them. However, he did say, “Blamed his obvious dive on Ali’s association with the Black Muslims,” according to Dave Ross of Howstuffworks. Liston was afraid that if were to beat Ali, his connection with the Black Muslims would come after him due to his past. Liston Was tied with organized crime before the fight and went to prison in 1950 and was there for two years.
“He was paroled to a team of boxing handlers with ties to John Vitale, a St. Louis underworld figure,” according to ESPN, this was after his two years in jail and then six years later Liston’s contract was owned by Frankie Carbo, and Blinky Palermo top mafia figures in the Northeast. The thing for Liston is that the heavyweight boxing championship wasn’t the only fight where Liston gave up because in Miami Beach in the seventh round, his shoulder was injured. We also don’t know when Liston was born nor how or when he died which is very interesting. So we will never know if Ali had outside sources stage the fight or if it was just something with Liston.
