Tag: Lewiston

James Taylor performs national anthem before Battle of Bridge HS game in Lewiston, Maine

James Taylor performed the anthem before Lewiston HS returned to the football field

The annual Battle of the Bridge football game took place in Lewiston, ME, on Wednesday. The game features cross-river rivals Lewiston High School and Edward Little High School of Auburn.

It was postponed from last Friday after the tragic and senseless mass killing of 18 people in the city.

Before the game took place, famed singer James Taylor performed the national anthem.

On this date: An iconic image of a historic championship fight

Neil Leifer’s famous photograph of Muhammad Ali standing over a fallen Sonny Liston in their rematch was taken on this date 55 years ago.

The arguments over the greatest fighters and fights go on and on. Strong cases can almost always be made for a number of candidates. And passionate boxing fans don’t hesitate to make them.

One thing that generally isn’t debated? The most iconic photo in the history of the sport.

That distinction goes to Sports Illustrated photographer Neil Leifer’s image of a young Muhammad Ali standing over a beaten Sonny Liston in their rematch on this date — May 25 — in 1965 at the Central Maine Youth Center in Lewiston, Maine.

Liston, who had lost the heavyweight title to Ali 15 months earlier, went down from the mysterious “phantom punch,” a hard-to-see right to the jaw only 1 minute, 42 seconds into the fight that spawned the unproven notion that Liston took a dive.

Ali, only 23 at the time, looked down at Liston and yelled, “Get up and fight, sucker!”

Leifer snapped his shot at that moment in what might be described as a perfect photographic storm: great photographer in the exact right place at the exact right time. The result is arguably the greatest sports photo ever.

Liston did get up amid confusion over the count, which referee and former champ Jersey Joe Walcott had bungled. However, after the timekeeper and The Ring Magazine Editor Nat Fleischer waved their arms to signal that the count had reached 10, Walcott declared Ali the winner.

The fight lasted all of 2 minutes, 12 seconds, but it was enough time to produce one of Ali’s most important victories, conspiracy theories that persist to this day and an image that is seared in our minds.