I've seen other sources say that Frankie Carbo owned Liston, which would make more sense since it would take the wieght of a guy like Carbo to control a heavyweight champ. Risnik doesn't sound like a likely intermediary for Carbo nor does Risnik seem like a mastermind of a HUGE fight fix (his specialty was bringing in high-rollers to Vegas, not the nitty-gritty of fixing matches/games)


I'm skeptical whenever a journalist digs up a 50 year-old FBI report. The FBI's knowledge of mob activities back then was spotty, based mostly on rumors and low-level (unmade wannabes) informants.

The report having been addressed to Hoover doesn't have much significance, since Hoover was a micro-manager who read and criticized/praise the reports coming in from the least important bureau offices and operations. And reports from the Hoover era have to be considered for the bureaucratic motives of the author. With Hoover's ditatorial and at times capricious power in the bureau, it's well-known that agents talored thier reports to say what they thought he wanted to hear (Hoover hated Ali-a report reporting progress mob infiltration and smearing Ali would be a possible slam-dunk).

What the report is doing making the logical leap with info gotten a tip from a gambler that Liston was hanging around woth Risink (who was very a connected in Las Vegas at the time) so that Liston "must" be owned and "therefore" the fight must have been fixed. Which is a pretty tenious line of logic at the very least.


It's like that report of a waiter at a country club supposedly overheard Frank Ragano and Santos Trafficante talking about how the "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match was fixed. Well Frank Ragano's son discounts that story, saying that Ragano didn't move to Tampa until a year after the fight and that the country club where this supposely happened was not a favorite hangout of Ragano or Trafficante, so them being there and talking openly about business matters was an unlikely occurance.

This just kinda smells like a reporter with nothing interesting to say about the Liston fight (what is left to say?--it's been 50 years) trying a pimp a "new angle" with some old FBI files that even the FBI has forgotten about.