Floyd Patterson avoiding Cleveland Williams

How about early 1961 when he was rated no7 ,instead of which he fought the unrated McNeeley.Patterson and Johannson tied up the title for 3 years.

 

As I said, before, after a tough three fight series with Johannson who was rated higher than Williams, you are going to criticize the guy for taking a gimme? You dont hold Jack Dempsey to that same standard so why Patterson, who actually fought his best contenders? You are complaining that Williams deserved a shot in 1961 because he was rated #7??? LOL. How about the six guys in front of him.

But part of the problem with your post is that you are using the Rings annual ratings. The Ring isnt an official sanctioning body so they dont dictate who contenders are. Furthermore the Rings annual ratings dont even tell where Williams was rated when this fight took place. In reality Williams was rated by the Ring in December 1961 at 8. The only guy who has a right to claim he was being ducked was the #1 challenger and that was Liston who Patterson fought in his next two fights. McNeeley was actually rated 10 by the Ring when he fought Patterson and was only dropped immediately after. George Logan, who had lost to McNeeley 3 times was jumped into his place. The only ratings that mattered were the NBA. They had Liston rated #1 when Patterson fought McNeeley. They had Williams rated 6 and they had Johannson rated 3. So in six fights Patterson fought: The #1 contender, the champion, The #1 contender, McNeeley (unrated by the NBA but rated 10 (two spots below Williams) by Ring, the #1 contender, and the champion. Yeah, Patterson was really ducking guys. In addition to that you can look at the real ratings, not the inaccurate Ring Annual ratings and see that with the exception of Rademacher (which was for a boatload of money) and McNeeley Patterson only faced top 3 rated contenders in title fights. When and for long was Cleveland ever rated in the top three? In your precious annual ratings he never got higher than #4. When he actually got a title shot he was only rated #8 by the NBA (now calling itself the WBA) and #4 by Ring (despite the fact that the only victory he had over anyone in the top ten was a young Terrell five years earlier which Terrell had avenged. He had never beaten anyone below him in the ratings. So I dont want to hear about how unlucky he had it or how he was ducked.

 

And then that protected HW went out and fought Liston...

Say what you want but my post above says it all: All but two of Patterson's HW title fights were against no worse than top 3 rated fighters. Pretty weak criticizing a guy like that as protected. Not his fault that the ratings organizations rated his challengers where they did. Especially when you consider that for most of his reign Patterson was the outsider fighting the establishment, or rather Cus was, and used him as a tool to single handedly break the mob controlled IBC, which damn near ruined boxing during what you mistakenly think was a golden era. You can try to spin it anyway you want because one of your favorites didnt get arbitrarily bumped up in the ratings and get an undeserved title shot but the fact remains that Williams' record was no better than London's or Harris', he didnt bring the same money that Rademacher did, etc. Again, if Harris was manufactured (with better wins at that point than Williams) what does that say about Williams who was being directed by the same people as Harris?? Sorry but your argument has no basis. Ratings and title shots simply arent awarded based on who YOU think looks more aesthetically pleasing or who YOU think was a better fighter based on YOUR OWN arbitrary criteria. Now, please explain to me how Williams deserved a title shot over LaStarza. Im still trying to wrap my mind around that. Please explain to me how Williams deserved a title shot over Harris? Thats the problem when confronted with cold hard facts and forced to defend yourself you fall back on "everybody knows that Williams was better." Hindsight is a great thing but in 1958 nobody gave two ****s about Williams and in 1953 nobody even knew who he was nevermind the lame excuse saying that its understandable that he got KOd by a 10 fight veteran when he was 27-0 on the undercard of Marciano-LaStarza (which you seem to think he should have been headlining). LOL.

And I have news for you: London was rated #2 when Patterson fought him. Valdez was rated 3. Valdez didnt beat London until AFTER Patterson had beaten him. Three weeks after Patterson beat London Valdez lost his next two fights and tumbled in the ratings. London dropped to something like 9 in the ratings after his loss so when Valdez did beat him it didnt do a whole lot for his career. He retired after that, walking out a bout with George Chuvalo due to failing vision. Had Floyd fought him and beat him in 59 youd just be saying he beat a faded blind man.

 

Terrell was 23 fighting his first big fight away from Chicago had 27 bouts and would eventually gain 15 pounds of solid muscle.

Williams was 20, not 19, and also had 27 fights and was also fighting his first big fight away from his adopted home and would also gain 15 pounds of solid muscle.

To deny the similarities is really reaching and really shows just how biased you are. Nevermind that Williams bout was a much easier 4 rounder against a nobody and Terrell was fighting a 10 rounder against a guy who had already been in the ring with Richardson, Liston, Bethea, and Miteff.

It doesnt matter if you think LaStarza would lose to Williams in their primes. There is no way in hell Williams A. Beats the LaStarza who challenged for the title or B. Deserved the title shot. You seem to have a problem specifically with fighters you percieve to be small and white. But want to ignore that there was a demand for a LaStarza-Marciano fight whereas nobody had heard of or gave a **** about Williams at that point and ignore the fact that Lastarza at his best was rated higher than Williams ever was. You keep acting like there was this massive conspiracy to keep all of these fighters rated higher than Williams when Williams wasnt facing anyone any better than those guys and wasnt always beating the ones he was facing. You also love to ignore just how padded his record is and just how mediocre his performances are against the top guys he fought. I get it, he was big and black and muscular. He looked the part. You find that "***y" but there has to be substance there and Williams never showed he had that. He got his opportunities and more often than not when he stepped up he failed. If you want to hang your hat on the idea that he got shot and that ruined his career so be it but unless you have proof that Patterson shot him you cant blame Patterson for not fighting him because Williams never once shouldered himself into contention.

Hasson isnt the only one who has LaStarza's fight with Jones. He is selling LaStarza far short. LaStarza was a popular and highly touted fighter in that era. You monday morning quarterbacks want to take everything out of context and act like boxing takes place in the vacuum of your small little minds and anything that diverges from your favorites and wants and hopes is some criminal conspiracy. The world doesnt work like that. When actually start looking at the big picture and see where people were rated, when fights were actually signed and then fought, etc. It becomes a lot less black and white than you fanboys want to paint it. Its exactly the same situation as those morons that want to claim Louis ducked guys like Bivins and Franklin because he didnt fight them but dont look at the actual context of why those fights didnt happen and just how small the window for them happening was. Thats exactly what you are doing here and its silly and frankly doesnt hold up. Your only argument is that YOU THINK Williams was better than fighter A not because he actually proved it against better competition but because he LOOKS better to you fighting (and sometimes losing) against the guys he did fight. Sorry but thats not how ratings are established and how title challenges are awarded (thank god).

 

I can. I have that fight on film. Youve never seen it. Terrell looked mediocre and was clearly still developing as Ive stated several times.

Terrell went on to gain a good solid 15 pounds of muscle by the time he challenged Ali and continued to carry that weight. He was in the best physical shape of his life.