(NEWS CENTER) -- In May of 1965, heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, had a rematch against Sonny Liston, the man he took the title from more than a year earlier, in a fight that many had called fixed because Liston threw in the towel at the beginning of the seventh round.
The rematch was supposed to be at the Boston Garden, but the local District Attorney filed an injunction to stop it because Liston had recently been arrested and the promoters didn't have a license to hold the match in Massachusetts.
The promoters needed another venue, and they found it at Lewiston's "Central Maine Youth Center." Local boxing trainer and coach Bobby Russo's family got seats in the fifth row.
"Everyone was there. The Cinderella Man, Jimmy Braddock was there, Joe Lewis, Jersey Joe Walcott, Rocky Marciano, Willie Pep, Floyd Patterson...shook hands with a few and it was great for that," said Bobby Russo.
But all that excitement was short-lived, because in the very first round, Ali threw a right punch that laid Liston flat on the canvas. It became known as the phantom punch because many in the arena didn't even see it land. The fight was over, and it wasn't long before critics started claiming it was fixed.
Russo chooses to look at the positives.
"It actually put Maine on the map, it was kind of a black eye, but nonetheless we got on the map you know," he said.
Muhammad Ali came back to Maine in 1995 for the 30th Anniversary of that fight. Ali also had the opportunity to sign the gloves that both he and Liston used in that historic fight. Those two sets of gloves that will be auctioned off in New York, a month from now and experts believe they could fetch at least $1 million.
The pair that Ali wore in his first fight with Liston sold at auction a year ago for $837,000.
