Did Ali thumb Terrell's eye?

Did he need to?!

 

Ali was reaching his peak by the time he met Tyrell, never mind the thumb in te eye, oh what could have been!

 

Nothing wrong with Terrell he was just up against a champ that`s improving the new amazing levels and coming off one of the greatest performances ever witness in a ring, Ali was miles out of Terrell`s class and only a high guard and low output stoppe the gap between the two being exposed to all even more. If Terrell had thrown more Ali would have countered him to death he spoiled in there, Ali was sharp as hell and thinking on his feet, I wish he could have met Frazier straight after this fight.

 

Of course, he thumbed him. Terrell's eyeball was pushed back in the socket and he couldn't turn his eye, causing double vision. It required surgery to correct, if I'm not mistaken.

Before thumbless gloves, if you threw a left jab, for instance, and the opponent tried to slip it, but the opponent didn't move to the left far enough, the main portion of the glove would miss but the extended thumb would land.

That's why so many boxers years ago went blind, because they'd get caught by a thumb slipping a punch. And that's why they eventually attached the thumb to the rest of the glove.

That's how boxers used to break their thumbs all the time, too. They'd throw a jab or a right, the opponent would slip the punch, but the extended thumb would catch part of their head and the thumb would bend back or break.

I don't think Ali thumbed him or anyone else on purpose, however. It was too easy to break your own thumbs.

 

It was Ernie Terrell. Not Tyrell.

 

I'd heard that before. But the injury was that his eyeball was pushed back into his head. I don't know how you can press your thumb into someone's eye in a clinch with that much force with gloves on.

I know how that could happen by throwing a strong jab or right hand and being slightly off the mark.

Larry Holmes was notorious for doing it, too.

That's why the ref would always tell boxers to close their gloves or make a fist, and not fight with the hand open - because then the thumb would flair out.

Foreman was always trying to "catch" punches with open gloves and then fire, and he'd leave his thumb out.

It was very common.

But it seems you'd need space to fire and the force of a punch to push someone's eyeball back in their head with gloves on.

Who knows for sure?

 

I'm an Ali lover but your timeline against Joe at that point isn't fair to Frazier; he was still somewhat FAR from prime.

 

Yes if someone could do some research on whether its possible to press the eyeball of another man back in the eye socket while wearing boxing gloves ...

While the other guy getting his eyeball pressed in is fighting you off ...

While the two of you are standing in front of 40,000 people who are all watching you ... and have no one in the audience see you do it ...

And then prove it was done intentionally ... given that everyone in the ring at the time is now dead ...

IF WE CAN PROVE ALL THAT ... I'm sure we'll have to consider whether to remove the Terrell fight from the laundry list of victories that make up Ali's significant wins.

(LOL)

Either that, or Ali threw a thousand punches that night, and one of them missed its mark slightly and his thumb went in Terrell's eye.

One or the other.

 

he didnt, he ripped his head off. SO why did you write that lie?