Cleveland Williams is nowhere near even Ingemar Johansson in any OBJECTIVE metric.

These fights don’t make sense. Tommy Jackson was a number one contender. Yet he is not on your list.

Tommy was Not that good, but based on his best wins, A better fighter than Williams ever was.

Jackson beat Baker. Why is Baker getting a shot?

Machen was not ahead of Jackson. And when he was ahead of Jackson There wasn’t much between Folley or Machen so it was only right that the two of them fough to decide who would meat Floyd.

Nino Valdes had lost to Baker and and Moore and Satterfeild. Even with the odd decent win either side of these kinds of defeats there was no demand to see Floyd whip him. Valdes was old hat.

Cooper was briefly on the radar after beating Folley. But Richardson never was, though both Henry and Richardson had better credentials to fight Patterson than Williams ever did.

Sonny did not deserve a shot at the title at least until after he had beaten Harris. And that was within the Patterson And Ingo series.

 

help!

 

These were all hypothetical fights, thus throwing Jackson out.

 

Why don’t you tell me why you think Williams won so clearly against Billy Daniels when the film shows Williams behind after the first 5 rounds?

 

forgot to add Satterfield I did

 

You can’t throw out a number one contender.

 

Don't worry, I've decided to give up Cleveland Williams comparison/ discussions.

 

What I mean is that Jackson DID fight Patterson for the title.

 

I am genuinely bemused.

I have been posting here for some time, but I never expected a Johansen Williams dichotomy to emerge!

 

Yes, it's turned out quite sickening. Things have gotten pretty nasty. Not really worth the discussion altogether. Not a kindly conducted discussion. My apologies to anyone I may have been rude to, particularly klompton.

 

I can see how Ingo was more money, but less risk? He was undefeated with KO victories over Cooper and Machen? Who had Williams beaten at this time to make D'Amato see him as such as threat?

He was bigger and more muscular, yes, but Ingo was definitely more proven against top comp. You'd think a world class trainer like Cus would look at the latter rather than the former when assessing how big a risk a fighter was.

 

Understand that Pastrano was fighting exclusively as a heavyweight in 1958 and didn't campaign seriously as a light heavy until December 1959.

More to the point, you need to understand that economics is what driives title fights. Ratings and wins only drive title fights indirectly through economics. And certainly an agenda choreographed 60 years after the fact without regards to the economics of the era adds nothing to why things did or did not happen. To stage a fight you need a promoter and the prospect of earning money. As far as Rademacher goes, he raised his own money. So in economic terms, he deserved a title shot. Also in economic terms, Patterson was in the 90 per cent tax bracket. That means that after the first defense or two of his title in a year (depending on how much the first title defense earned him), 90 per cent of each additional dollar he earned went to the US Treasury. That is the major reason there was only one defense of the title a year. Meanwhile, during that year the other contenders were winning and losing against each other. So, while it may look like so and so deserved a shot for a couple of months, things changed quickly. Other fighters were winning and losing too. In this environment, your static list of who Patterson should have fought is totally meaningless.

 

it was a rough-cut quickly constructed list not meant to be based on rankings, but that all of the fighters mentioned had just won a big fight, or a series of them, or at least lost a close one. But I said I wouldn't continue this discussion, so I have to bow out. Much appreciated info though. Thank you.

 

There is nothing wrong in criticizing a fighter for having a losing record in his prime.

The flaw in your argument that keeps having to be repeated to you over and over again is that William's prime was cut short. Hence why the whole "tough luck" dismissive attitude you and others in this thread have is frankly nonsense. It's a bit similar to blasting Ike Ibeabuchi or young Stribling or Edwin Valero for not having more wins on their record. We simply don't know how good they could have been.

I like how you just completely ignored how Ingo and Williams match up in the h2h sense and the points I made about Patterson being a protected champion with a glass jaw. Ingo did what he was supposed to do but he was in the right place at the right time, a bit like Oliver McCall and an inexperienced overconfident Lennox Lewis who had a major weakness. Neither Oliver nor Ingo managed to replicate that sort of success before or after winning the title and it does say something about their commitment and how much they had in them.

 

Very good post. It takes Very little research to bare out what you are saying here. Patterson actually did a good job as champion given the timeline and restrictions of the period. He deserves more credit.