Muhammad Ali vs Ernie Terrell

BrocktonBlockbuster49 · Post by **BrocktonBlockbuster49** » 05 Aug 2005, 23:44

What do u guys think about this fight???

was this perhaps ali's best fight?? or at least his most brutal dominating fight?

no one ever mentions this up with alis best fights but when u look at it u could make a case. ernie terell was the WBA heavyweight champion and had defended the title twice, and at 6'6 he looked like he could pose some trouble to ali. but ali completely dominated him winning 13 rounds to 2. ali gave him a beating for 15 rounds. terrell was a legit contender of the 60s not to mention champion.
i think terell was the never the same after that ali fight because he lost a lot of fights after thayt including a dissapointing preformance in the WBA elimination tourney.

he was coming off his loss against ali, and many thought he would do well in the WBA tourney if not win it but terrell was upset by thad spencer when he wa knocked down and outpointed. his bad showing in the WBA tourney i think was the reason he never got a lot of respect even though he was a hevayweight champion.

so bottom line was this perhaps ali's peak fight??? u say it was williams, but williams wasnt the same cleveland williams. he was old and still had a bullet lodged in his back. terrell was the reingning WBA champ coming off wins over george chuvalo eddie machen and doug jones.

BoxBuzz · Post by **BoxBuzz** » 06 Aug 2005, 07:49

It was a great perfomance and I think Ali was intent on not knocking him out just to punish the guy. He didnt like the way he couldnt quite get his name right so he seemed to want to assist him by perhaps beating his name indelibly into Ernies memory.

By the way it was Ernies Sister that took Diana Ross's place with the Supremes for a bit of time. Tammy was her name I believe.

silkov · Post by **silkov** » 06 Aug 2005, 08:36

This was probably Ai's 'peak performance'... Terrell was a good fighter tough and awkward with a very good jab. Ali completely nullified Terrells skills with his constant movement and his own jabs and combinations.
Terrell had refused to call Ali anything other than Clay and this infuritated Ali who went into the fight really wanting to make Terrell suffer.
Its probably the only time that I've seen Ali fighting with a viciousness which he usually didn't have. Despite his anger at Terrell though Ali fought a brilliant technical fight and really gave Earnie a painful boxing lesson that effectively ended Terrells career.

dnahar32 · Post by **dnahar32** » 06 Aug 2005, 09:41

Ali was great against Terrell, who he looked to punish and carry, but I still consider the exhibition he put on against Cleveland Williams as Ali's greatest fight. Granted, Cleveland Williams was washed up but the back-to-back-to-back Ali shuffles (the words don't do it justice) and sheer speed and punching accuracy Ali showed that night I have not seen from a heavyweight before or since.

BoxBuzz · Post by **BoxBuzz** » 06 Aug 2005, 09:46

Both Virtuoso performances.

silkov · Post by **silkov** » 06 Aug 2005, 10:24

dnahar32 wrote:Ali was great against Terrell, who he looked to punish and carry, but I still consider the exhibition he put on against Cleveland Williams as Ali's greatest fight. Granted, Cleveland Williams was washed up but the back-to-back-to-back Ali shuffles (the words don't do it justice) and sheer speed and punching accuracy Ali showed that night I have not seen from a heavyweight before or since.

Yeah ALi's hands that night were like an artists!...

dnahar32 · Post by **dnahar32** » 06 Aug 2005, 11:29

silkov wrote:
dnahar32 wrote:Ali was great against Terrell, who he looked to punish and carry, but I still consider the exhibition he put on against Cleveland Williams as Ali's greatest fight. Granted, Cleveland Williams was washed up but the back-to-back-to-back Ali shuffles (the words don't do it justice) and sheer speed and punching accuracy Ali showed that night I have not seen from a heavyweight before or since.
Yeah ALi's hands that night were like an artists!...

A boxing friend of mine made a throwaway comment that the heavyweights are always boring. I wanted to show her a fight to change her mind, and the fight I used was Ali-Williams. All of our jaws dropped when Ali did that triple shuffle (even though I have seen the film A LOT it never fails to put a smile on my face), and the ironic thing was that a referee today would have stopped the fight before Ali even had a chance to do those shuffles because of the 3 knockdowns and Williams being in survival mode without throwing punches. Thank god that fight happened in 1966 so we got to see that.

Grimm · Post by **Grimm** » 06 Aug 2005, 15:22

Didn't Terrel use the excuse that he was blind?

Now that's funny.

Sweet Scientist · Post by **Sweet Scientist** » 06 Aug 2005, 16:55

Grimm wrote:Didn't Terrel use the excuse that he was blind?

Now that's funny.

Well, the 'orbit' bone around his eye was fractured, if I remember correctly...he actually had double or triple vision...same as blind, I suppose...be pretty rough looking at 2 or 3 prime Muhammad Ali's standing in front of you, don't you think? He had surgery on the eye after the fight...he got pretty banged up in that fight, Ali was doing some 'surgery' of his own...an example of a 'pissed off' prime Ali, and what he could do...

Seamus · Post by **Seamus** » 06 Aug 2005, 22:33

That was the fight where Ali kept popping Terrell with the jab while yelling "What's my name ?" "What's my name ?".

Grimm · Post by **Grimm** » 07 Aug 2005, 01:51

Seamus wrote:That was the fight where Ali kept popping Terrell with the jab while yelling "What's my name ?" "What's my name ?".

Yeah Ali claims he said it too.

Grimm · Post by **Grimm** » 07 Aug 2005, 01:52

Sweet Scientist wrote:
Grimm wrote:Didn't Terrel use the excuse that he was blind?

Now that's funny.
Well, the 'orbit' bone around his eye was fractured, if I remember correctly...he actually had double or triple vision...same as blind, I suppose...be pretty rough looking at 2 or 3 prime Muhammad Ali's standing in front of you, don't you think? He had surgery on the eye after the fight...he got pretty banged up in that fight, Ali was doing some 'surgery' of his own...an example of a 'pissed off' prime Ali, and what he could do...

I havn't seen any other of Terrel's fights but did he always hold his hands like that?

Why the hell did he fight if he was blind?

LMAO.

BrocktonBlockbuster49 · Post by **BrocktonBlockbuster49** » 07 Aug 2005, 02:55

haha terrell then started fighting in a peek a boo style because he was seeing 3 ali's. jeez i give him credit for surviving 15 rounds against 3 prime muhammad alis. if i saw 3 muhammad alis coming at me i think i would either grab the security gaurds gun and shoot or jump out of the ring and run away.

Sweet Scientist · Post by **Sweet Scientist** » 07 Aug 2005, 12:27

Ali and Terrell had some serious animosity going on before that fight...Ali usually was having some fun verbally picking on his opponent before fights, not really serious...a 'twinkle in his eye'...a sly smile on his face...against Terrell, It was real hatred...both ways...

Everybody was on Ali's case back then...The Feds were chasing after him to make him a 'poster boy' for the war effort, no intention of putting him on the 'front lines', they wanted to 'use' him to display that the young black heavyweight champion 'supported the war effort'...Ali was hated and villified by the press and the public...as an Ali fan back then, I was definitely in a minority...Only Howard Cosell would call him Ali...virtually everybody else in the press called him Cassius Clay, except to his face, if they wanted an interview...Ali was absolutely, positively not a popular fellow at the time he was at his peak...became a Black Muslim (which people didn't understand), publically denounced the war effort (which people didn't understand...yet), and his constant, shameless self promotion was no longer funny to a public that had turned on him, despite the fact that his skills back then, bordered on the unreal...every round seemed a masterpiece...speed that hadn't been seen in someone that big before...

Living in a racially mixed area, I noticed that only the younger black people (along with his fans of any color) would refer to him as Muhammad Ali back then...even the older black people called him Clay...so when a young black man, Ernie Terrell wouldn't call him Ali...it absolutely infuriated him...
Before the fight, they had the typical confrontation on Wide World of Sports with Cosell...Ali and Terrell saying how they were going to get the other guy, which quickly became an ugly scene with Ali calling Terrell an 'Uncle Tom' (about the second worst thing you could call a black man back then)...and Terrell was as infuriated at that as Ali was being called Cassius Clay by a black opponent...so it was a very volatile mix...

Ali showed a side of himself that he wasn't really proud of in that fight, I think...usually it was Ali who tried to get the other guy infuriated, and 'out of his game'...it was the only time that Ali openly displayed hatred for an opponent...and before anyone brings it up...No..he didn't really hate Joe Frazier (Joe wouldn't call him Ali either, but I think Ali had mellowed out a bit during the layoff...he was just so damn happy to be fighting & making money again)...although Frazier may have hated him at one point, I think that's also gone...

BoxBuzz · Post by **BoxBuzz** » 07 Aug 2005, 14:59

I think Ali carried him and could have put him away and actually chose not to. Sounds counter intuitive I know. I'm not sure the praise goes to Terrell for hanging in there.

Grimm · Post by **Grimm** » 08 Aug 2005, 18:20

BoxBuzz wrote:I think Ali carried him and could have put him away and actually chose not to. Sounds counter intuitive I know. I'm not sure the praise goes to Terrell for hanging in there.

I don't quite think that Ali was carrying him.

BoxBuzz · Post by **BoxBuzz** » 08 Aug 2005, 18:27

Let me rephrase that, he didnt want his bug to get squashed because he wanted to continue his experiments until the very last moment.

Grimm · Post by **Grimm** » 08 Aug 2005, 23:09

BoxBuzz wrote:Let me rephrase that, he didnt want his bug to get squashed because he wanted to continue his experiments until the very last moment.

Yeah like he didn't want to knock him out he wanted him to suffer?

Maybe so but I think Ali just went in for the kill but couldn't take him out.

THE DANCING MASTER · Post by **THE DANCING MASTER** » 09 Aug 2005, 00:32

Terrell later claimed that Ali thumbed him and rubbed his eye against the top rope. I watched my copy of this fight the other night and couldn't see where such an event took place. You could, however, clearly hear Ali screaming "What's my name?"

I remember the weekend before the fight Terrell and his band were on the Hollywood Palace and he sang a little diddy called "Won't Come Home Big Cassius" to the tune of "Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey." Terrell was considered a tough opponent for Ali and some folks even thought he had a pretty good shot of defeating him. Terrell was the WBA champion, but that was just a paper title that no one took seriously.

BTW, Tami Terrell who recorded for Motown Records and sang with Marvin Gaye was NOT Ernie's sister. Her real name was Tami Montgomery and she started off with The James Brown Revue before signing with Barry Gordy and changing her name. She eventually died of a brain tumor. The last I heard of Ernie he was a city councilman in Chicago.

BoxBuzz · Post by **BoxBuzz** » 09 Aug 2005, 07:04

Hey Dancing master, you may be right about Tami but that was a very widely accepted rumor at the time. I saw Ernie kidding about it in an interview in Phonenix and obviously did not read his humor correctly. I walked away thinking she actually was related. Thanks for setting the record straight.

wouter · Post by **wouter** » 10 Aug 2005, 08:51

It was actually Ernie's sister Jean Terrell that replaced Diana Ross.

BoxBuzz · Post by **BoxBuzz** » 10 Aug 2005, 10:28

AHA! Thank you! I knew I had a twisted bit of the truth in all that. That darn first name was my undoing. Now I'm at peace with this.