why so much love for lyle.....

I have seen both of those fights including the one Terrell "won", i honestly thought Williams won that.

 

To answer your thread question, because Lyle was a big badsass dynamite punching warrior with a heart as big as all outdoors, who gave in every fight an honest as hell effort win or lose. Lyle brings back many good memories of the the 70's..he was a man's man IMO.

 

How many levels of overrated are you willing to argue?

I'm fine with Quarry getting his just credit as an exposer of overrated sluggers like Lyle, Shavers, and the like.

But the overrated boxer who exposed overrated sluggers? Eh....that's a nutty label.

 

I am utterly convinced quarry would beat williams. I am convinced big cat would have also lost to floyd patterson, ingo johannson, jimmy ellis, leotis martin, folley, bonnavena perhaps even mildenburger and brian london who all IMO beat much better fighters than cleveland williams.

 

Bonavena I could definitely see beating Williams..as well as Quarry.

 

Jimmy Young of course would have beaten Williams.

 

ron lyle beats willaims for sure.

 

Why does Lyle get the love? I think it's for a few reasons: 1) a lot of us are sentimental about the 70's, and Lyle was an exciting supporting player on the scene.
We miss the depth the division had then. 2) I think there's a sense that had he started ten years younger, he could've been a great. 3) he came really close to beating two of the top three seventies heavys, Ali and Foreman.
But back at the time, Lyle was really only seen as a decent contender, not a real title threat. He kind of folded against Ali and I think was written off. The Shavers victory was barely noticed at the time, because Earnie hadn't really become the big name that he later became. Then the near-miss against Foreman gave Lyle new attention for awhile -about one year- and then Young beat him and I think he was regarded as being finished. Struggling with Stan Ward, Joe Bugner, and Scott LeDoux did little to improve his standing, as these were razor-thin victories against second and third-tier guys. He never got another shot because of the Young loss and because other guys were winning fights more impressively.

 

He made some waves during a short amateur career, including a savage KO of Bobick who was then a highly regarded amateur. Physically he seemed to have everything which he proved in his early career by KO'ing 17 of 19 opponents, many in devastating fashion as can be seen on film. He was big and strong, he took a good punch and he had enough speed and skill to catch up to opponents in order to land with the power.

Lyle had quickly become a top contender despite a late start in boxing, with calls being made for a Frazier bout, but his flaws were exposed by Quarry who was basically Frazier's gatekeeper, derailing him from title contention. It must be said that Lyle did put up a respectable enough performance not to be forgotten altogether, as a Mac Foster was. His ultimate downfall was the fact that Quarry took up boxing almost from the moment he was born, while Lyle started out in his late 20's. A huge difference in experience which Quarry exploited by dictating the terms of the fight and befuddling the bigger opponent with veteran moves.

For the next few years he continued on without any overly impressive performances (except over aging Ellis and Bonavena) and was eventually upset by Jimmy Young. This loss did not keep him from getting the title shot he had seeked for his whole career, as Ali was looking for a workout in between fighting Foreman and Frazier. Ali's rope-a-dope tactics did not work against Lyle who simply stood back and outpointed Ali for 12 rounds, but the great champion landed a right hand which Lyle could not recover from. It was a source of some controversy but Lyle suffered from stamina issues throughout his career and he was essentially a punching bag by that point.

This looked to be the end of the 34 year old and he was matched against the younger, hard-hitting Shavers, but he had the determination to climb up from the canvas and outlast the puncher. For this fight and the next, he adopted the style of a counter-puncher working for openings against the ropes. The Shavers fight served as ideal warm-up for his next big fight against Foreman, in which he put up his most memorable performance, sending Foreman to the canvas twice until being battered to unconsciousness.

Lyle at this point was going on 36 years of age and it was all downhill from there, aside from a split decision over Bugner where Lyle won with heart alone as his physical ability had largely declined. Embarrassments against Lynn Ball and Gerry Cooney later followed, but these do not lessen his status as he was near 40 years old then.

Overall, I'd rate him the perennial contender who was a very good fighter but just lacked the extra to put him over the top, whether it be luck or ability. In the case of Lyle, I would say that his greatest short-coming was his late start in boxing, which left him with a massive handicap in experience that he could only hope to overcome with physical ability. Any way you look at it, it was impressive that he was able to go punch for punch with George Foreman and box with Muhammad Ali.

 

One other point,which is potentiallly interesting. I think nowadays the fight would've been stopped in Earnie's favor after his knockdown of Lyle...it was that brutal of a shot. But by the same token, Ron's second knockdown of Foreman I think might've resulted in a stoppage in modern times. So, for the most part if kind of balances out.

 

That speaks more about today's officiating than it does about those results.

I do think Lyle would have been finished off if not for being saved by the bell. He was all but out, which only speaks about his courage to last the following round where Shavers used him as a heavy bag and ended up tiring himself out.

 

Well, I think it's completely logical to say a fighter is OVERRATED because some of his biggest wins were over very overrated opponents.

Let's just say, Quarry's about equal with Ellis, and in my opinion he gets his praises sung A LOT MORE than Ellis ever does around here. And I don't think it's because Ellis is being short-changed.

 

I think Johansson and Patterson would beat him. Not sure about the others. Some might, some almost certainly would not.

Williams rarely stepped up to fight in the top class. He was beaten quickly by Liston and Ali (when he was past it), but as I've mentioned, he proved to be on a par with Machen and Terrell.
Machen was as good as Quarry. As was Terrell.

I suspect Williams had more to fear from guys who could really punch, rather than smaller guys who try to outbox him and wear him down.

 

The semantics aren't important.

However, Quarry is going to be more popular than Ellis anyway you cut it, he was at the top or at least in the main event mix more frequently, more crowd pleasing, and simply more memorable fighter and bouts. Its not really fair, but I really haven't seen too many argue Quarry on another tier than Ellis, nor have I seen his capabilities and accomplishments stretched with any kind of regularity that would warrant a negative "overrated" tag. You are not even arguing that, rather you are just claiming to see him namedropped more than Ellis. I can't say the same for fighters like Lyle, Tua, or Ruddock. Who like Quarry are used as examples of stronger contenders in stronger eras, though their resumes are well lacking in the substance of a Quarry or Ellis.

 

The version of ernie terrel the big cat beat was about wayne bethea level -since that ernie also lost to him as well as johnny gray. By the time of their return terrel wasnt much better either but williams failed to KO a kid he already beat. Later Terrel found better form and would beat guys like bob foster, folley, machen, chuvalo and doug jones on UD decisions outside of his hometown. williams did not beat those kinds of fighters -EVER.

I dont see how beating and having a SD with an unrated fighter puts cleveland williams on par with prime rated versions of machen and terrell? The draw williams had with machen was in williams's base of texas after all...

"Eddie Machen, 198, and Cleveland Williams, 211 1/2, ruined their immediate chances for a heavyweight title shot last night with a cautiously fought 10 round draw. Both Machen, the No. 2 heavyweight contender, and Williams, ranked No. 5, climbed into the ring hoping to come out with a clearcut right to challenge the Sonny Liston-Floyd Patterson winner for the title. Machen came out unscarred, Williams had a cut on the mouth and a mouse over his right eye. Machen scored heavily with his effective counter-punching." -The Fresno Bee