How do you rate Ali's win over Terrell?

Terrific win with all Ali’s skills on display.

My only “complaint” - I wish Ali had paid a bit more attention to the body, to force down Terrell’s high guard and increase Ali’s chances of securing a KO.

As it was, Ali definitely hurt Ernie badly at different times - which only served to make Terrell clam up even more.

But Ali the “whole” fighter was simply great so far be it from me to presume to “tweak” Ali to greater effect - he was a perfectly integrated system not to be messed with.

 

It was almost a shutout.

 

Terrell never inspired fear in anyone. He wasn't dynamic, wasn't eyecatching, wasn't exciting... The versions of Jones and Machen and Williams that he beat weren't on the ascendency, to say the least. And getting beat by Ramos and Spencer immediately afterward kinda diminishes his status.

 

Do you think it's possible his subsequent losses can be attributed to the fact Ali broke him?

 

Top 12 win over a fighter I highly esteem as far as skills go, despite not getting the idea of showmanship.

 

Shows how dominant Muhammad was at this junction of his career. Ernie was one of the best fighters around in 1966 and Ali's superior skills were on show.

 

Good point buddy, furthermore for me that small window between this fight and the Williams fight, is truly Clay/Ali at his finest, he had filled out to be, well if you wanted a DNA type photo fit of the physique to stand up as the blueprint for how a HW should look, you could do a lot worse, by then Clay ( his name at this time ) had honed his craft into the finest HW champ to draw breath, I can not envisage any champ, any champ, Louis, Dempsey, Holmes, Lewis, Rocky, having the beating of him at this stage in his his illustrious career.
This is not diminish his later achievements, the Frazier fights, toppling the monster Foreman, etc, titanic performance's one and all, but when the topic comes up ( and it does a lot ) as to who was the best, I can't see no further than The Greatest.
stay safe guys.

 

Did you know following that Title unification bout on Feb 6 1967 that contender Joe Frazier was considering a title bout against Muhammad Ali but his manager Yank Durham talked him out of the bout, Yank Said to Joe, Just Wait, Clay (Ali) Might Go To Prison Anyway Because Of His Problems With The Draft Board, I read that in an article leading up to the Fight Of The Century in 1971. I saw the Terrell vs Ali title bout a week later on ABC's Wide World Of Sports. Ali looked terrific.

 

I don't understand why Terrell kept insisting on calling him Clay after he legally changed his name. He could have saved himself a lot of grief by saying I will call you anything you want except Your Highness and I'm still going to kick your ass.

 

Same reason Ali called people by all kinds of nicknames and taunted his opponents through the media. To get Ali off his game.

 

He failed miserably. The only time I saw Ali visibly upset in the ring was when Chuck Wepner rabbit punched him.

 

Agree.

Often when guys like Terrell were asked why they kept referring to Ali by his former name, they came up with the packaged lines: “That’s the name he was born with or that’s the name his parents gave him”.

If that’s the case, a lot of Hollywood actors’ stage names (with various reasons behind same) would go by the wayside.

Actors like Tony Curtis would have to go back to Bernie Schwartz or Cary Grant back to Archie Leach.

People did it (calling him Clay) for different reasons, to get Ali’s goat or even reject what the name change stood for.

Others again sometimes just forgot themselves, like Cosell on occasion. A very strange one - Harry Carpenter the famous Brit boxing commentator called Ali by the name Clay throughout the whole live broadcast of the FOTC.

Carpenter seemed like a decent guy and I’m not aware of his having any axe to grind - he would’ve known Ali’s desire to be called by his new name.

Maybe the Brits didn’t want people to forget or become confused over the fact that it was still the same guy (Ali) who was famously knocked down by THEIR very own ‘Enry Cooper. LOL.

For whatever it’s worth with due respect for the whys and wherefores behind the name change but I always thought Cassius Clay sounded pretty cool - maybe it worked better in rhyme also - ha!

 

Yes, and sell some extra tickets. But always when you do that, you run the risk of making your opponent even more intent on kicking your ass.

 

It was a good win by virtue of the fact that Terrell was a belt holder and probably the most qualified challenger for Ali in early 1967. That said, I don’t rate Terrell that highly. But yes a good win