Good info on status of the Heavyweight Division in 1965 (Terrell v Machen)

Wow...another "I didn't know that" factoid from the misty past!!

 

Just brought the bout up on You Tube...checked the 10th round...looked more like a slip to me, but really,,,i could be wrong...what I saw was so awkward and ugly that I almost went into a stupor while watching.

 

Thanks for posting. Both of these guys occupy a less explored part of boxing history.

I feel like Ernie Terrell was sort of like the Martin VanBueren of the heavyweight championship.

 

Just to add a little context to the discussion of the Terrell-Machen fight, here's an excerpt (with footnotes at the bottom of the excerpt) from the third volume of my series "The One Is Jack Hurley":

"Despite his ring inactivity, much had happened to Clay since he won the heavyweight title on February 25, 1964. Only two days afterward, he announced he was a member of a Black Muslim sect of the Islamic faith. On March 7, he proclaimed he was renouncing his birth name because it was a slave name passed down to him from his great-grandfather’s plantation master. Henceforth, he would be known as “Muhammad Ali,” a name of great significance to followers of Islam.

These announcements sent shock waves through the sports world. Many white Americans perceived the Black Muslims as a violent and anti-American separatist group who hated white people and advocated that black people overthrow the existing social order.

One person particularly upset by these declarations was World Boxing Association (WBA) president Edward Lassman. On March 23, he called Clay “a detriment to the boxing world’ and argued that his “conduct is provoking world-wide criticism and setting up a poor example for the youth of the world.” Lassman said he would take the matter up with the WBA’s executive committee and urge it to declare the heavyweight title vacant.

Lassman’s statement initially was met with criticism. Past WBA president Dr. Charles P. Larson said the comment “smacks of thought control and is far more dangerous, in my belief, than Clay’s assignment with the Black Muslims.” Lassman was put off for awhile, but his cause received a boost when it was learned Cassius had signed an agreement prior to the first Liston fight giving Sonny’s promotional firm the right to stage the new champion’s first defense and to name his foe. Naturally enough, the firm chose Sonny as challenger.

The agreement had been drafted carefully in an effort to avoid the rule against return bout clauses, which the WBA enacted after the third Patterson-Johansson bout, but the clever wording failed to deter the WBA from its resolve. At its annual meeting on August 28, 1964, its members made a determination that the agreement violated the return bout rule. As a result, they voted to strip Clay of his championship and made plans for an elimination tournament to decide on a new heavyweight titleholder.

The members failed to explain why the rule suddenly was being invoked when it had been ignored earlier in the case of the far less desirable Liston-Patterson rematch. Nor was any weight given to the fact that the agreement was a valid contract for which Clay might have been sued if he refused to go through with the match. Also ignored was the public’s obvious wish to see the bout in preference to any other, and the fact that Liston still was listed as the No. 1 contender by every rating agency except the WBA.

The WBA designated Ernie Terrell, Cleveland Williams, Floyd Patterson, and Doug Jones as its four top contenders and proposed an elimination tournament to crown a new champion. From the beginning, the proposal ran into trouble. Patterson declined to participate because he was next in line to fight Clay after the Clay-Liston rematch. Jones fell out of favor when he lost to unrated Billy Daniels. Williams became unavailable when he was shot in the stomach during a dispute with a Texas policeman.

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With three contenders bowing out before the tourney even began, the WBA abandoned its elimination series and instead decided to appoint the winner of a match between Terrell and shop-worn Eddie Machen as its champion. The bout was held in Ernie’s home city of Chicago on March 5, 1965, and, after 15 dreary rounds, Terrell was awarded the decision. A crowd of 6,587 fans paid just $47,115, a sign of how lightly boxing fans viewed the WBA’s claim that the fight deserved championship recognition."

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1 Grimsley, Will, “Heavyweight Champion Embraces Black-Supremacy Sect” (AP), Seattle Times, February 27, 1964, p. 34. “A New Name” (AP), Seattle Times, March 8, 1964, p. 47. “WBA President’s Action ‘Ridiculous,’” Seattle Times, March 23, 1964, p. 16. “Lassman Backs Down on Clay-Ouster Demand” (AP), Seattle Times, March 24, 1964, p. 12. Smith, op. cit., September 1, 1964, p. 12. Daniel Dan, “Where Do our Heavies Stand Now?” Ring Magazine, February 1965, pp. 6-8. The World Boxing Association (WBA) was the successor organization to the National Boxing Association (NBA). The membership of the NBA voted for the name change on August 22, 1962, at its annual meeting held that year in Tacoma, Washington.

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“Buck, Al, “Terrell Winner, – So What?” Ring Magazine, May, 1965, pp. 23-24. The most persuasive evidence that the Terrell-Machen fight lacked the appeal usually associated with a heavyweight title fight was the fact that Terrell himself had to bear the entire financial risk of the show in order to find a promoter willing to stage it. Under the terms of the fight contract, Ernie received 60 percent of net receipts, out of which he agreed to pay Machen’s guarantees of a $20,000 purse plus $5,000 in expenses. The only receipts generated by the show came from the live gate since there was no interest by the networks or the closed-circuit firms in televising the bout. A final accounting determined that Ernie lost $2,500 on the bout. As a result, promoter Irving Schoenwald, Hurley’s ex-partner at Marigold Gardens and the Chicago Stadium, came out smelling like a rose and was the only party besides Machen to make a profit on the show.

 

Haha...excellent analogy!! I always liked and respected Terrell...and of course Machen.

 

Even as an 11 year old I was shocked by this unexpected WBA 'curveball'??
Terrell was, indeed, the 'Octopus' especially against smaller fighters. To his credit, he had a pretty good set of whiskers, a good jab and a stiff right hand so no one is going to walk thru him.
At the time I thought it ridiculous because...who would he challenge for the 'title'?
The cast?
Machen: I love Eddie but he got his butt handed to him nine months earlier by Patterson.
Chuvalo: Again, Patterson had simply outworked him a short time before and given Ernie's ability to take a punch, Ernie simply had to jab, paw, and hold to cop an easy UD.
Jones: Just...too...small!
Good thread!

 

Less like Martin Van Buren, who was in fact a legit president, than someone like Lewis Cass or Horatio Seymour or Alf Landon. "World champion" Terrell strikes me as sounding like "President" Landon.

 

You're right that my analogy was off. I confused MVB with John Quincy Adams, who was elected in 1824 under weird circumstances ahead of Andrew Jackson, who had a plurality in the electoral college thanks to a political bargain with Henry Clay, if I recall correctly.

The analogy was meant to highlight the fact that Terrell's 'championship', like Quincy Adams' presidency, was the product of political manuevers that were defied merit/popular opinion. That would have been apparent if I'd remember which president was elected in 1824.

 

In a sense was Machen the Jimmy Young of his time?

 

I don't think so. Jimmy Young beat Foreman, and a lot of observers thought he did enough to beat Ali, although that is of course debatable,

Machen consistendly lost the big ones. Folley (2), Johansson, Liston, Johnson, Williams, Patterson. 0-5-2--He always came up short when it most counted, and the Terrell fight fell right into this rut with not only a loss, but a dull, uninspired effort.

You could go back to Maxim, but he was fading. Baker & Valdes were aging second-tier guys. Jackson performed so poorly a lot of boxing commissions banned him, so who knows, but that probably is Eddie's biggest win.

 

It is easy and valid to criticize a champion's behavior, but this whole situation shows that getting the politicians involved might be a cure that is worse than the disease.

And this one was really odd. Williams & Patterson as two of the four tournament participants because it was so outrageous for Liston to get a return go. Together they hadn't lasted 7 rounds in four fights with Liston.

 

"political manuevers that defied merit/popular opinion."

No doubt about popular opinion.

Merit concerning Adams and Jackson is far harder to judge. The public was always behind the bull-in-the-china-shop Jackson, but his policies were often not enlightened, and in the case of the Trail of Tears, downright distasteful.