With declining standards, are Lee Savold and Ernest Terrell now legit champions?

Yes, but Ali's claim to the title was 100% at the time, no ifs or buts.

Whereas Savold/Woodcock came in the wake of Louis's retirement, and not everyone was regarding Charles yet as a proper 100% champion.

 

Ali was the champion. Terrell's claim was trumped up by a bunch of Ali haters who abused their official positions as offiicers in the WBA to wage a personal vendetta against the true champion.

 

You could make the argument.

That would make Peter Maher and Tom Sharkey champions, and Jack Sharkey a two time belt holder!

 

Savold was never a champion. Terrell was a legit champion, just not a great one.

 

Why exactly is Terrell legit? He won the title from a contender who was coming off a loss to Patterson, defended against a contender who was coming off a loss to Patterson, and another contender whose last major fights were losses to Daniels and Chuvalo. Clearly Ali was the real champion. Why abruptly did it become all right to strip Ali because of a rematch with Liston which I think the public wanted, as there was some doubt over the first fight. All politics, I think.

Savold has about as strong a claim, or non-claim, as he beat a contender also, but at least the argument could be made that the IBC froze out legit contenders by not fighting an elimination tourney and instead naming Walcott and Charles to fight for the title. Charles didn't have the clear claim in 1950 that Ali had in 1965.

 

I think Savold’s Commonwealth “ world title “ seemed somewhat scandalous.

 

The World Boxing Association decided to institute a rule prohibiting immediate rematches after Ingemar Johansson, Floyd Patterson and Sonny Liston basically spent four years handing the title back and forth to each other.

Ingo had beaten Floyd. Ingo sat on the belt for a year, the lost it back to Floyd. Floyd sat on it for year, beat Ingo. A year later, Floyd lost it to Sonny. Sonny sat on it for a year, beat Floyd again.

At this point, the WBA just decided more people needed to get title shots, the same couple people can't monopolize the title. The only guy, other than Ingo, Liston and Patterson who had fought for the belt for four years was Tom McNeeley.

The WBA was also getting pressure from organized crime, because the mob controlled Ernie Terrell and Eddie Machen. They didn't control Ali.

When Ali decided to give Liston an immediate rematch, the WBA pounced.

But everyone recognized Ali and Liston as the top heavyweights. So matching Ernie Terrell and Eddie Machen for a vacant belt was dumb. But it was the WBA trying to prove they were "in charge."

Then they found out, if the fighters are big enough, the org is never in charge.

That's why you'll often see a popular/powerful champ hold a number of belts, then as soon as he loses, the orgs start peeling the belts off the new champ. It's like they wait for years for an opportunity to flex their muscles. And then they start stripping belts the first chance they get, even if it doesn't make sense and the new champ is fine.

Seems like they do it just so they can feel like they are calling the shots, sometime.

What's interesting is, when Leon Spinks would beat Ali 14 years later, the WBC stripped Spinks for agreeing to give Ali an immediate rematch, and the WBA didn't. And the WBC did it because they were getting pressure from Don King, who didn't have ties to Leon and could never get a real foothold in with Ali.

 

Supposedly, the International Boxing Club paid Joe Louis to vacate the belt so the IBC could stage a fight between their two house fighters - Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe Walcott - for the vacant title.

A similar situation happened years later when Ali vacated the WBA title in 1979 after getting a $300,000 check from Bob Arum so Arum could stage a heavyweight tournament with fighters he was promoting for the WBA belt.

The National Boxing Association agreed to recognize the Charles-Walcott winner as champ. (No doubt NBA members were paid for agreeing, too.)

Seems like the British Boxing Board of Control were a little angered that they weren't included. So, they saw this as an opportunity to bring the heavyweight title back to England and they matched their top heavy with a journeyman from the U.S. who they figured would fold. And it kind of blew up in their faces.

It would be interesting to go back and look at the personal animosities there may have been between people running the BBBofC and the NBA, which changed its name to the World Boxing Association.

Because, the British Boxing Board of Control didn't recognize the WBA heavyweight tournament in 1967/68, either. And when the winner of the tournament, Jimmy Ellis, offered a title fight to Henry Cooper in 1969, the British Boxing Board of Control said they'd remove Henry Cooper's boxing license if he took the fight and he wouldn't be able to fight in the UK anymore.

And Cooper was mad at them for years afterward.

 

Terrell was one of the top contenders in 1965, but rightfully so. But I agree, how could Machen be getting a shot at the title? Sentimentality is the answer. The WBA felt sorry for Eddie who was in his last days and since he had deserved a shot at more than one point in his career, they thought they should give him a title shot. Nice, but be realistic. Patterson, Chuvalo, or even Folley or Cleveland Williams were much more deserving of that fight with Terrell.

 

I don't think it had to do with sentimentality so much as it had to do with Machen being an old-time IBC fighter, and the Mob wanted control of the title again, so they wanted two of their fighters fighting for the vacant belt, that way they'd have the winner regardless.

 

The WBA tried to put together an elimination tournament featuring Terrell, Patterson, Williams and Doug Jones. But Patterson refused to take part, Jones unexpectedly lost to Billy Daniels, and Williams got shot. That's when Machen's phone rang.

 

Jose Sulaiman found this out when Mike Trainer refused to pay the WBC's $500,000 sanctioning fee for the upcoming Leonard-Hearns unification bout and threatened to strip Leonard of the title. Trainer told him the fight would go ahead with or without the WBC's involvement. Sulaiman backed down and accepted a much lower offer.

 

Everyone in the US seems to have recognized Charles .Solomons and the BBBOC concocted a spurious title and many believe the first bout between second rater Woodcock, and Savold was fake, just as his bout with Oma was faked.
Cooper never mentioned a threat by the BBBOC to strip him of his licence .In his autobiography he just says he relinquished his British title because the board would not recognize a fight between himself and Ellis as being for the legitimate world title.
When years previously Brian London ignored the Boards orders and challenged Patterson for the title he did not have his licence revoked he just got a fine.

In 1968 Cooper relinquished the British title when the British Boxing Board of Control refused to sanction a proposed world title fight against Jimmy Ellis, one of the men with a version of the world title that had been stripped from Ali. "I've made them enough money over the years," Cooper said, fuming at the Board's intransigence.

 

The thing that killed the Cooper-Ellis fight, ultimately, was Cooper getting injured. I have a live television interview with Ellis where Ellis is discussing having been on the shelf for a long time and looking forward to fighting Cooper and the interview mentions that earlier that day it was announced that Cooper was injured and the fight was off. Ellis looks stunned and youd almost think he was going to cry for a second. He says something to the effect of "well I havent heard that and if its true thats really heartbreaking."

Savold wasnt totally disregarded in the USA as claimant. I have a couple of newsreels originating in the USA from that time where Savolds claim is clearly being given some consideration due to the murky nature of the division in the wake of Louis' abdication.