Did Ali thumb Terrell's eye?

I didn't claim there was irrefutable proof. That's why I started this thread -- to say which way I was leaning, and see what other evidence was out there.

 

Only if we actually found good evidence for those thumbs, though.

If intentionally poking another guy's eye until his vision is affected doesn't taint a victory, what does? Loaded gloves? Carnera's handlers threatening to shoot his opponents? Blinding ointment? Is there any red line?

EDIT: The blinding ointment is a good parallel to intentionally thumbing an opponent. If Sonny slathered blinding ointment on his gloves round after round until he KO'd Ali, I doubt any Ali fans would consider the victory legitimate. But if the ref doesn't notice it, how is it different from an unseen, intentional eyegouge?

EDIT 2: Think of all the excuses that people use in this forum. Their fighter wasn't prime. He was suffering from an illness. He was coming back from a long layoff. Severely weight drained. Addicted to drugs. Whatever. "His opponent gouged his eye until he was seeing double" sounds like a much better reason to disregard a fight's results.

 

The only difference it might make would be Ali's susceptibility to jabs.

Some people claim that Ali was unusually susceptible to the jab. They use Norton as evidence. Ali supporters counter that Ali never had problems against good jabbers during his first career. The argument goes that Terrell and Liston were both very good jabbers, so prime Ali wasn't that vulnerable to jabs. Remove the Terrell fight, and you're left with Liston I and II -- which may have been fixed. Suddenly Norton doesn't look like an aberration anymore.

 

In reviewing the thread, a few posters seem fine with intentional thumbing. But you don't appear to be one of them. Sorry for lumping everybody together.

The glove design issue is a good point. But I think it's limited.

There are basically two arguments going on. One argument is about whether Ali would deserve a victory over Terrell if he thumbed him badly. The other is whether Ali's victory over Terrell would still be impressive.

If Ali *intentionally* thumbed Terrell, then I think the answer to both questions is, "No." Thumbing your way to victory isn't a legitimate way to win. If Ali deliberately thumbed Terrell, then he didn't deserve the win. It also wouldn't be an impressive performance.

If Ali *accidentally* thumbed Terrell, then the answer to the first question is "Yes." Ali deserved the victory. Fair enough. Injuries happen. Wouldn't be the first time a freak injury decided a fight.

But!

If Ali accidentally thumbed Terrell, I still think that the answer to the second question would be "No." No, beating Terrell by accidental thumbing isn't impressive. I just don't think that winning with an accidental thumbing says much about a fighter's ability. You don't see fantasy matchups on Classic where somebody says, "Yeah, Louis versus Holmes is basically even, but I give Holmes the edge because he could blind Louis with an accidental thumb."

 

Some of those fouls might merit a second look. But that goes beyond what I'm arguing for in this thread.

Ali's foul wouldn't have created a slow, *possible* impact on results like Spinks's elbows. It apparently gave Terrell double vision. Poking somebody in the eye badly enough to affect vision is one of the worst fouls around. Eye gouging was banned even in the early UFCs, which allowed hair pulling, stomps to the head of a downed opponent, and groin shots. If thumbing Terrell doesn't cause us to reconsider Ali's fight with him, then I don't know what foul would.

 

Duran/Buchanan is one of the closest parallels, since Duran's foul was a fight ender. If Duran had stopped Buchanan with it early in the fight, before he demonstrated clear superiority, I think we'd be justified in not weighting the Buchanan fight heavily when considering how good Duran was. Just as we don't weigh Schmeling / Sharkey I very heavily in considering either Schmeling or Sharkey. But again, there are very few fouls that rise to the level of severity that thumbing Terrell would.

 

Let's start with where I've changed my mind. After 7 pages, I think this thread has demonstrated that it would be almost impossible to prove Ali did it intentionally.

I'll actually go further, though. This thread has put forward a lot of good evidence *against* an intentional thumbing. I started this thread thinking intentional thumbing was more likely. I now agree with the majority that it was very probably accidental.

So your main question about what I'd conclude from an intentional thumbing is academic at this point. Still, it's a fair question, so:

Right, so let's say that tomorrow, somebody digs up a taped interview where Ali said, "Yeah, I thumbed Terrell intentionally. It was fun. LOL."

In that case, I would remove the Terrell victory completely when considering Ali's ATG status. I would also put a small, Terrell-shaped negative mark on Ali's ATG resume.

But as I said above, I don't think anymore that we have an intentional thumbing. The evidence is pointing to an accident. In that case, we should still throw out any rounds after the thumbing when considering Ali's fighting abilities against top contenders, but he gets credit for the victory for greatness purposes, and does not have a penalty asterisk on his record for "winning" by intentionally gouging somebody.