Was Ali widely considered a 2x champion for beating Earnie Terrell ?

No he wasn't. Ali was always a champion, he just regained a second belt when he beat Terrell.

 

He is considered 3x undisputed champion because he regained the WBA belt from Terrell, but at the time Ali was seen as the universally recognized champion while Terrell was seen more like a contender. Shows how the view of alphabet belts changed in time.

 

Think I made a thread about this year's ago, I thought the same.
Beating Liston made him 1
He then got stripped of the WBA
Which he regained so made him in effect a two times champ there.

 

No, cause Spinks wasn't undisputed. Ali was 4x WBA champion, and 3x WBC, undisputed and lineal champion.

 

When someone says 2x,3x champ theres the implication they lost their belt in the ring. Losing a belt politically doesn't count the lineage actually has to move on from that fighter.

Also if we did it this way we'd need a different counter for every alphabet body which would be needless complexity.

 

Nobody considered him a two time champ for beating Terrell, including him and Terrell.

 

Not a 2 time champ, but 2 time undisputed, yes. Just like Usyk is now. Other thing is - the concept of undiputed didn't really blow up until mid-80's.

 

No.

 

Ali was always thought of as 3 time. The Terrell thing was never recognized by the public. No one believed Ernie should be the champ while Ali was still undefeated. On a side note Terrell had quietly cleaned up the whole division while fighting in empty arenas. The public who almost all hated Ali at this point hoped the tall lanky boxer could give Ali some real competition.
Unfortunately Ali thumbed him in the eye according to Ernie and he was seeing double early in the fight and the eye closed up. Eventually he had blood streaming into his eyes and both ended up swollen shut. He was unable to show the skill and use his length the way he had against the rest of the division and was badly beaten. He was physically damaged so badly that he could no longer fight at a high level and was never a serious contender again.