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

how exactly? was he funded by them? It just doesn't make sense, cuz his shot in '65 was legit, and none of Terrell's fights appeared to be fixes.

 

It doesn't mean his fights were fixed. Mobsters muscled out his manager and were profiting from Terrell's career. He was seen as a mob fighter.

 

I'd never heard of that but it makes sense. So r u saying that Terrell may have been a mob fighter and not even known about it?

 

No. (LOL) When your old manager spends his time hanging out with mobsters, then he gets muscled out, then he tells the FBI the mob is taking over boxing again, then he gets beaten up, doesn't testify and now different people are taking a cut of your purses, I think you know you're a mob fighter. I'm guessing Terrell knew. And I'm sure it had some perks. I doubt he got on Jack Benny's Variety Show because he was good singer. (LOL)

This content is protected

 

Did those mob ties come back to hurt him in the Wepner fight? Referee Harold Valen was the sole judge. Most in attendance felt Terrell won easily, and the Associated Press gave Terrell every round.

Terrell must've gotten his New York license by the end of his career. He lost to Jeff Merritt in Madison Square Garden in his last fight.

 

Why was it legit to strip Ali of the WBA title because he honoured the rematch clause, when this hadn't been done to the previous five champions who honoured their rematch clauses?

 

Terrell wasnt really a mob fighter. He was managed by Bernie Glickman who was a wanna be that got off on associating with mobsters. This association is what ruined Terrell getting a New York license. When the mob tried to muscle in on Glickman in order to take control of Terrell he bucked them, suffered a savage beating, and went into protective custody. The idea that Terrell was a mob fighter got legs because Chuvalo has told the story for years that he only lost the fight with Terrell because the mob fixed it (and attached several other untrue and fanciful stories to that narrative as well). In reality you can watch the film of the fight and see Terrell clearly beats Chuvalo.

 

clearly? I mean, he did win imo, but it was very close.

 

I dont score headbutts.

 

what about Terrell's thumbs?

 

Thats Chuvalo's story and Chuvalo was full of them. If you listened to him he never lost a fight. Well, he clearly lost to Terrell. And frankly, Ive never seen anyone but Chuvalo and his manager Irving Ungerman allege that he deserved to win the fight legitimately. Go back and read what the Canadian Press said about the fight. To a man they agreed he lost clearly. The most sympathetic independent observer to Chuvalo was Carmen Basilio who worked the closed circuit telecast with Don Dunphy and didn't approve of the way Terrell boxed on the backfoot all night but even he said that Chuvalo never could take the fight. If you think it was close fair enough but even Chuvalo's countrymen disagree with you as do the films of the fight. Two of the judges gave Terrell 10 rounds, more importantly they gave Chuvalo 2 and 3 rounds respectively. The other judge who had the fight closer at 7-5-3 had Terrell so far ahead by the 9th round that Chuvalo needed a knockout or several knockdowns to win. Chuvalo's hometown paper said "Ernie Terrell beat Chuvalo last night as surely as any one man has ever beaten another." When Ungerman claimed he was going to use the films to prove he was robbed Gene Ward said "We hope he doesnt try it. His boy couldnt take another clobbering like the one Ernie Terrell dished out last night." Jack Kinsella, writing for the Ottowa Citizen said that the result was predictable as early as the 7th or 8th round and any other decision would have been larceny. Jim Coleman writing for the Edmonton Journal mused "The gist of the complaint was: "A home-town boy never can get a square deal in Toronto." Egad - they had a Toronto referee and two Toronto judges. How much of an edge does a guy need in this fight game?" Pretty clear nobody including Chuvalo's own countrymen felt the fight was anywhere near close. The fact is that despite his nice guy persona outside of the ring Chuvalo is a whiny ***** who always has an excuse for his losses and those excuses never jive with the fact that he was a limited guy who is better known for being a human punching bag than being some great fighter. He got dominated by Pete Rademacher for christ sakes.

 

Ya, I know Chuvalo did complain a bit, which I'm no advocate of. He was in some close fights that could have went his way though, like the fights with Patterson and Bonavena. I actually thought it did look like Terrell thumbed Chuvalo, and I don't put some kinds of dirty fighting past Terrell either. But I'm trying to be pleasant, so I will not criticize you 4 ur opinion.

 

Its not an opinion that Terrell won wide. Its a fact agreed upon in almost unanimity by the experts and more importantly Chuvalos hometown judges. The referee, Sammy Luftspring, was one of the most respected officials in the country. So please, spare me your false civility. And frankly the only way Chuvalos decisions against Patterson and Bonavena “could have gone the other way” is if you are being generous to Chuvalo. In both cases the right guy won and you didnt need to be generous in the scoring to arrive at that point. Competitive fights arent necessarily difficult to score and such was the case in those fights. The right guy won in both and Chuvalo was outpointed by a much wider margin against Terrell than either of those guys. The implication by Chuvalo which you piggy backed on was that the decision was not only unjust but fixed. Thats patently ridiculous for numerous reasons and the fairytales that Chuvalo spun to get people to believe that are even more ridiculous. Not unlike his supposed moral victory of going dancing with his wife while Ali was sent to the hospital pussing blood, which also never happened.

 

Man, no matter how much people disagree on fights, it's still just opinion. You think Terrell beat Chuvalo, so do I. But there are plenty of people who would drop their jaws to the floor if I said Terrell won. It's your opinion, my opinion, their opinion. Nobody's wrong, nobody's right in the case of who won the fight, other than officially. However, there is the film which shows Terrell winning the fight. So one opinion might be superior to another, mine and yours in this case, but it doesn't make it a fact. I remember thinking that the fight was very close, but I will go back and watch it soon just to verify my position.

 

Boxing is not a sentimental business. Don't kid yourself that a lot of people thought Terrell was the logical contender or that Machen was owed a shot at the phony WBA title. The WBA president Edward Lassman wanted to find an alternative champion to Ali because he didn't like Ali's brazen ways and the fact that Ali was militant and had adopted the Muslim faith. He tried to put together a tournament with Patterson, Cleveland Williams, Doug Jones, and Terrell as participants, but the whole thing fell apart when Patterson declined because he was set to fight Ali, Willliams got shot in the gut, and Jones lost to Billy Daniels. That left Terrell as the only one left from the "Original Four." Terrell was given the shot because a) he was the only one left who was willing to participate in the tournament and b) Irving Schoenwald from Terrell's hometown of Chicago was willing to promote the fight so long as he received a guarantee from Terrell that he (Irving) would not lose money. By this time Lassman was desperate to save face and find a champion. He gave up the idea of a real tournament and accepted Schoenwald and Terrell's offer to stage the fight. Machen was entering the "opponent" stage of his career, but he still had a name so Schoenwald and Terrell chose him as the "challenger," knowing full well that he had virtually no chance to win. Lassman was just relieved that there was somebody (anybody) who was willing to bail him out.

The fight drew just 6,587 fans and a gate of $47,115 with no TV, film, closed circuit or radio revenue, proving that the new fight was not taken seriously as a title fight even in Chicago. Under the terms of his contract with Schoenwald, Ernie received 60 percent of net receipts from which he agreed to pay Machen $20,000 and $5,000 in expenses. The final accounting showed that Ernie lost $2,500 on the bout. Schoenwald and Machen were the only ones to come out ahead financially. Kudos to Ernie for seeing the opportunity to further his career and running with it. Now, some people look back and regard him as a champion and I don't begrudge him that. But at the time, most fans didn't look upon him that way, and Ali proved why when they fought in 1967.