Ali's Controversial "Phantom Punch" Explained - Brilliant Exchanges

in 1964 muhammad ali shook up the world by defeating sunny liston afterwards many believed the occurrence to be a fluke their second fight should have put that notion to rest as ali knocked liston out in the very first round of their rematch the moment was captured in what became one of the most iconic sports pictures ever taken ali standing over liston screaming at him to get up surely ellie assumed that he had put any doubt about his legitimacy to rest instead the knockout became one of the most controversial highly debated sports moments ever a great deal of fans and even professionals in the boxing world believed that liston had taken a dive for the mafia some claim that ali had never thrown at all giving rise to the conspiracy theory of the phantom punch the controversy was so great that a segment aired on tv with boxing experts discussing the matter the guests included former heavyweight champions jack dempsey and rocky marciano but as slow-motion footage later revealed ali's punch did in fact connect so in this video let's take a look at exactly how ali set up his phantom punch an attempt to answer if the blow was actually hard enough to score a knockout to start with owly's punch was no lucky accident he drew it out on purpose and already had a counter in mind arguably there has never been anyone so adept at drawing punches to counter as ali he was a master at constantly maintaining a distance that was infuriatingly close but just out of reach he would leave himself wide open hands down and chin out so that he could tempt his opponents into becoming overly aggressive his sense of distance was so great that he could turn his head as he pulled to let punches just barely graze him for instance here ali leans back and turns his head to let a hook just skim his cheek then counters immediately to knock out his opponent this was one of ali's favorite traps as was the draw encounter sequence that ali used against lista by staying just out of range ali invited upon us to step deeper and deeper as they jabbed in other words ali was actively encouraging his opponents to put their chins within easy reach of his counters ali evaded these over-extended jabs with head movement and subtle footwork stepping out off-center to get a superior angle and driving opponents into a hard counter right ali used a similar tactic against zora foley slipping foley's jab and stepping into his right so it's clear that ellie set the shot up on purpose and that the shot had been sharp enough to knock down fully but against foley ali was not moving backwards as he threw did he have enough weight moving into his fist to really put liston down all evidence suggests that's very possible after all ellie was moving backwards when he knocked out george foreman and cleveland williams and anderson silva's knockout of forrest griffin is a more modern day example of the exact same setup being used a big factor that many may not have considered was that liston like griffin was moving into the punch and this can greatly amplify the force of the blow now that that's out of the way let's get technical and look at the exact sequence and movement patterns ali used to trick liston into stepping directly into his punch the first thing to note is that ali actually squared up his shoulders as he pulled this is the exact opposite of what most boxers do who usually prefer to hide behind their lead shoulder as they pull but ali squared up to prepare his rear hand in fact it seemed he used his opponent's punch striking his shoulder as a sign that he had the right distance notice how in the foley fight ali tries to throw each and every time foley's jab hits his shoulder next notice how ali cross steps at the same time swinging his rear leg behind his front just as he did in the williams knockdown squaring up your shoulders and cross stepping are again two seemingly contradictory movements however they both serve to place ali's punch directly in line with liston's chin finally notice how ollie plants down on his rear foot as he connects and then drops his weight into the punch by sliding his lead foot backwards ali's low hand position also came into play as his punch caught lifting completely by surprise coming up from underneath his line of vision to circle around his shoulder before finally extending of course it's the punch you don't see that's the most devastating so since ali was totally capable of landing a knockout punch in this manner the last remaining question is whether liston could have gotten up if he wanted to while that's only for liston to know those who knew them are doubtful that someone as prideful as liston would have thrown a fight for the championship of the world and in case you're curious the two heavyweight champions jack dempsey and rocky marciono both went against the rest of the guests on the show and said that they believed the punch was sufficient to foul listen but that's just my take feel free to let everyone know your thoughts in the comments and check out my books on power footwork and defense linked in the description from the modern martial artist this has been david christian wishing you happy training

Channel: The Modern Martial Artist

Views: 1,495,232

Rating: 4.9391398 out of 5

Keywords: boxing, Muhammad Ali, analysis

Id: rqZlQ3IWX4s

Length: 5min 39sec (339 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/mattcolville]

That was super fucking interesting. I didn’t know anything about this.

[u/zlance]

You can see the shock wave of the punch traveling through the body from the back.

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/CityOfZion]

I don't get why it was debated at all, it looked clear to me even in regular playback speed that Ali connected the punch, you can see Sunny's head shake from the impact. Sounds to me like the media was grabbing at straws for some drama.

[u/AnotherJustRandomDig]

I am honestly not a boxing fan at all, but this video made me laugh so hard, nd how can you not like a legend like Mohammad Ali?

In school we all had a mutual friend who was such a fucking clown, I cannot believe he did not go into stand up comedy. But he would do this sort of "Stay infuriatingly out of reach" in football and even fighting, he just would laugh while running .0000001 Millimetres per second faster than you and 3 Microns out of reach.

It was not a mocking laugh though, it was always a genuine laugh of having fun playing the game, when it was a game and not a fight anyway.

That is some impressive intuitive trigonometry going on, to be able to have such a sense of distance and reach while luring an aggressor into such a nasty trap.

That punch is unquestionably devastating and does not need very much force because of where it hit, the freaking pin of the jaw looked to be dead center of that freaking glove.

Put that with an 78" reach that moves like lightning, by someone who is good and knows he's good? That is a punch that ruins a the next several months.

[u/CRABMAN16]

This should be clear to anyone who watches a lot of mma and boxing. Ali hits him square on the chin. The chin is called "the button" for a reason. Getting hit there creates a multidirectional force on the skull, increasing the power/felt force of the punch. This is also why short hooks create as many or more knockouts than full heavy punches.

[u/Jolly_Pop_Jim]

He's got that peanutbutter and jammmmmm

[u/hawkwings]

The ref did not see the punch so he was confused and people at home were watching on old fashioned TVs. That was back before pay-per-view so people were watching it on TV.

[u/sasquatch90]

"Was the punch even hard enough for a knockout?"

Why is this even brought up? Literally any punch can cause a knockout. I've seen guys get dropped by a fucking jab.

Edit: Lol to people downvoting