By James Slater: Exactly 44 years ago today, at the huge Astrodome in Houston Texas, world heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali engaged in one of the more controversial fights of his illustrious career. The performance Ali gave in this fight, against reigning WBA champ Ernie Terrell of Chicago, gave us more than a glimpse of his cruel side; his ability to be both ruthless and punishing.
Ali was the world ruler, no-one disputed that, despite the WBA strap Terrell held. Yet the capable Terrell – who held good wins over Cleveland Williams (a revenge win, coming after Ernie had been stopped for the only time in his career by Williams in a previous encounter), Zora Folley, Eddie Machen and George Chuvalo – disputed the fact that Ali was so great. Terrell, a tall fighter with a fine left jab, truly felt he would beat the man he continued to call Cassius Clay, Ali’s “slave” name.
During the build-up to the fight, Terrell so angered Ali that the 25-year-old, at his peak champion completely lost his cool. Refusing to refer to Ali by his still-recently acquired Muslim name, Terrell was promised a sustained beating by Ali. And, boy, did “The Greatest” keep his promise!
Terrell, 39-4 and probably at his own peak at age 28, tried as best as he could, but almost from the very beginning it was obvious that he, like every other heavyweight of the day, had nowhere near enough speed to be able to deal with Ali. But Ali wasn’t content with merely out-classing Ernie; he wanted to humiliate him for the name slur. Ali dropped his hands and left them dangling at his sides for long periods (“Oh, the chances he takes!” said British commentator Harry Carpenter. “Clay is just using his feet to stay out of range.”) and he also lashed out with stinging blows. At other times, while literally daring Terrell to hit him, Ali bellowed out “What’s my name?!” Ernie never uttered a word in reply, later claiming he never even heard anything that Ali was saying to him. “I was concentrating on surviving,” Terrell said.
Terrell was game, but he was falling hopelessly behind on the judges’ score-cards. Also of a serious concern for “The Octopus,” as Ali dubbed his latest challenger, was the damage Ali had inflicted on his left eye. Swelling up and closing fast, Ernie’s eye had a fractured bone underneath it and it was later revealed how Terrell had a damaged retina. Later, the loser claimed Ali had purposely rubbed his eye along the top rope as the two had been in a clinch. Ali vehemently denied this claim (“I’m a clean fighter,” he insisted), but Terrell still feels he would have won had his eye not been so horrifically damaged.
Due to a combination of Terrell’s bravery and Ali’s willingness to prolong the beating of his over-matched adversary, the fight dragged on for all 15-rounds. Maybe Ali could have closed the show and got the stoppage, who knows for sure? In any case, Ali won by a lopsided margin on each of the three cards – by a whopping 148-133 score in the case of one judge. However, Ali was given no rave reviews by the experts after the fight.
Instead, almost every single writer chose to focus on the mean-spirited side of Ali’s nature. Condemned as a cruel bully, just as he was two years ago when he brutalised and tormented former champ Floyd Patterson, another fighter who insisted on calling Ali Clay, Ali was all-but hated by the media. No-one could deny his boxing brilliance, but the champion’s taunting and “carrying” of an opponent was seen as being in terribly bad taste. For sure, the Ali of the late 1960s was a million miles from the beloved global hero he would become in the mid-70s and still is today.
Now 28-0 and with seemingly no-one out there capable of defeating him (Ali never ducked anybody, taking on all comers at a rapid rate, correctly sensing as he was that his days of freedom were numbered), Ali may have been disliked at home but he was popular in Europe and in other places. But after just one more fight (a stoppage win over Folley that March), Ali fell foul of the United States government. Stripped of his title and his passport for refusing to be inducted into the armed forces, Ali was made redundant, unable to fight for a living. The government had done what no fighter was even close to doing: defeating him.
Millions of Americans, the same ones who were appalled by Ali’s showing against Terrell, failed to have a shred of sympathy for the former champion. It would be three years and seven months before Ali would have his license reinstated by the supreme Court. By then, Ali’s peak years had passed, and never again would we see the blinding speed he had against Terrell.
That Ali had gone for good.