How much corruption and cheating would be necessary for Terrell to beat a prime Ali?

We often talk about how dirty tactics and corruption can change the outcome of high profile fights. But there are some matches where it might not even matter.

Let's take Ali vs Terrell as a case study.

The question is, would there have been any plausible level of cheating that could have won Terrell that fight?

Looking back over the examples of successful cheating in the past (or, in some cases, accidents that had the same effect), I'm not sure that Terrell could have won even if he got away with ALL of them.

(Potentially) accidental blinding substance on Terrell's gloves? No. Ali dealt with that before. Been there; done that; got the T-shirt. It might buy Terrell a round or two. Fouling? Terrell tried. Steroids? Technically legal in the 60s, and Terrell might have been able to use some extra mass on that bean pole frame. But I don't think 60s steroids would alter the outcome. Stimulants or other drugs to pep a fighter up? Not likely; Terrell's problem wasn't stamina, but a vastly better fighter beating him up. Illegal smelling salts? No. Gloves with padding removed? Possible, but I dunno. Ali was pretty hard to hit; he also absorbed bombs from men who hit much harder than Terrell. Loaded gloves might do it, but they'd be easier to detect.

I'm not sure anything short of an outright fix (or poisoning) would have allowed Terrell to win this one. But if the forum thinks otherwise, I'm all ears.

 

Thanks. Part of the trick is, at some point, you're risking exposure. A bribed ref might allow more fouls than most, and might even give a knockdown count on a clear slip. But there are limits there if the ref ever wants to work again. Pulling out the black bottle was only tried once over the course of a fight. And so on.

It's a fine balance, I think. You can't be too obvious with slathering Mace onto your gloves every round, for example. Most underhanded maneuvers I think are one-use gimmicks.

 

I'd say that if any tactic was used successfully in the real world (in the modern period, close to the time of the Ali bout) you can use it to the same extent that the original offender used it.

So one black bottle, one or two rounds of blinding ointment, repeated and frequent fouling is fine (Terrell actually did this), long term steroid use is A-OK (there was a 70s guy who used it a few years later), smelling salts or ripping a glove to buy time is fine...once (Ali benefited a bit from this), and so on.

Paying off a ref, same deal. Bribing or swaying judges can be done, but they can't commit too blatant a robbery. They'll give close rounds to Terrell.

 

Absolutely true. At some point, Ali will turn up the heat if he's getting eye-poked, suffering weird ref calls, wrestling a freakishly strong Terrell, etc. (Although geriatric Ali still apparently did fine in clinches with Lyle Alzado, who was a former amateur boxer and far more roided up than Terrell could get.)

 

Not quite sure what you mean as far as the thread topic goes. Terrell wasn't hooked on steroids to my knowledge.

 

It's unfortunately become a much bigger part of boxing punditry as more knowledge has come out about it. In the late 90s, there was still a veneer of ignorance about it being an issue in most sports among the general public. Now, it's an issue that (rightly, in my opinion) is much more front and center in all sports. The information revolution created by the internet makes it harder to ignore or sweep under the carpet.

It also very clearly fits this thread's topic, since the thread is about the effectiveness of cheating.

 

Since you asked an honest question, I'll give an honest answer:

So far, you've made some very odd assumptions about me over the course of multiple threads: (1) that I'm a communist who wants to ban religion, (2) that I'm fixated on steroids -- and perhaps a steroid addict myself, based on your earlier post in this thread, and (3) that I talk about 70s Ali because I take sadistic pleasure in seeing Ali suffer.

So far, these predictions have been 0 for 3. I am not a steroid addict, and indeed, don't take steroids at all. I don't talk about 70s Ali because I am a sadist who wants Ali to suffer. And I'm not a communist who wants to ban religion, either. (Although the version of me who emerges from your posts' speculations sounds like he led an interesting life...)

On an internet forum, you're not exactly working on a lot of information to begin with. It's rarely enough to make such far-reaching deductions from almost zero evidence.

Our online posting only gives a vague sense of what we do in the rest of our lives. For example, I had no idea (and could not have guessed in a million years) that @janitor was a member of HEMA until he told us. This hobby of following boxing is a pretty small part of our lives for most of us.

Or take yourself as an example. You *also* talk about steroids (which you call "Modern Nutrition") quite a lot. Always disparagingly, but you mention it often in old vs modern threads. Should we assume that you are also a steroid addict?

I certainly wouldn't make that assumption. We're on a boxing forum. We all go through phases where we want to look at certain aspects of the sport. And we often have a strong opinion or research interest in those areas.

So the answer to your question is no.