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

I just re-watched the fight on YouTube. Didn't score it but my perception was a narrow win for Terrell. Could have been a draw but it definitely wasn't a robbery.

More to the point, Williams is supposed to be this heavyweight destroyer, yet his list of big wins is so thin we're debating whether he might have eeked out a win against Ernie Terrell? And that would have been his biggest win. Does anyone think if Liston, Louis or Foreman fought Terrell we'd be arguing about a split decision?

 

Come on swagdelfadeel, glasscitycobra, scartissue, this discussion is a waste of time. I'm not going to change my point of view cuz that would be betraying my eyes, and the word of great boxers, but this discussion is a waste of time. I think it has ceased to be a useful discussion long ago. Now it's just a war.

 

not taking sides but I’ll add that Johansson never fought a man with a losing record. Williams fought approximately 27 men who either had losing records or were debuting.

 

Nice change of goal posts. Learning from your mate Choklab, aka Mr. ID? First you said, Williams lost spectacularly to the best men he faced, I name the best men he face and his performances against them, and you change your argument to criticizing his opponents hoping nobody notices. Not under my watch, you don't. I know your game Klompton. This is a recurring theme to you, whenever someone backs you into a corner, points out your double standards, or calls you out on your outright lies, you either ignore them, use a red herring, or a straw man, and intentionally write essays of irrelevant garbage (full of the aforementioned straw man) hoping nobody will actually take the time to read it, and call it out for what it is. Absolute bollocks!

 

I see you talking about Cleveland Williams....i can't read it but I see you talking!!!

 

Only one of them had a name you can truly fear: Cleveland.

 

You said that Ingo was less risk than Williams in D'Amato's eyes, and I can't see how you come to that conclusion since Ingo was the more proven fighter.

Never called Cooper a great win, just a win over a long time ranked contender. Something Williams lacked at that stage.

 

Thanks for the second sentence.

 

This seems to happen quite a bit Bill. Moving forward you will often be asked to put forward a bit more proof one would think.

 

I do think there is sense to this way of thinking, but the fact is that few champs have only fought their best challengers. Louis had quite a few fillers, Ali had some too. Tyson had a good reign, but he didn't fight the most deserving challenger every single time. Frazier had some god awful defences. And so on and so on.

Marciano is probably the HW champ that best fit your criteria. But the rest (of those who had more than one ore two defences) fall short I think.

And I don't understand why Floyd gets so much more stick for this than anyone else.

 

What middleweight"s" ever beat Bob Satterfield Chok?

Let me answer that for you - NONE.

Also Satterfield was never a middleweight himself let alone a guy who could make that weight basically his whole career.

Satterfield wasn't much off being "really a heavyweight" because that era was littered with sub 190 pounders including champs and top contenders like Rocky, Charles, Bivens and so many Moore if you get the drift.

Lastly i was talking about a middleweight from 60 years previous beating a lineal heavyweight not guys against guys from their own era.

 

George Foreman was a hell of a fighter though. We cant invent Williams into that level.

Williams had a negligible hight and reach differential to Cooper. He did not have faster feet than Cooper. Nor was he as clever. Williams was heavier than Cooper though. But Cooper was more explosive against better fighters. Take the knockdown of Ali for context.

not really. Patterson had suffered two losses like Machen had suffered against Ingo by then. When it happened Patterson vs Machen was a fair fight.

I think they were both IBC fighters. The IBC had a lot of influence on the title at that time. If Machens handlers had wanted a title shot without beating Folley they probably could have got it. Machen had not been fighting that long, I wouldn’t be surprised if they wanted one more fight.

could not agree more.

This was my interpretation too. Williams would have been a sitting duck against Patterson or Ingo. Williams not walking through those gazelle punches and Thor’s hammers like he did against Terrells one twos.

The fight was tough. Patterson hurt his hand and it became a hard fought battle. Floyd first hard fight. Tommy was still #1 contender in his own right. He earned his shot. Jackson had to twice beat Bob Baker to get it. He had beat Rex Layne, Ezzard Charles, Charlie Norkus, Dan Bucceroni and Clarance Henry. It is a better resume than Williams by a long chalk.

London was a warm up for Ingo. Radmacher was a fight that was so close to the Jackson fight that Floyd did not break camp. An extra filler fight he took without having to go into camp again.

 

Unfortunately I didn't say anything about "all these top rated guys". What I said was that you were wrong to claim that he lost in his prime "spectacularly" to the best men he faced. And it's obvious you know I'm right or you wouldn't be trying to do this weird gaslighting thing where you seem to think that if you keep telling me over and over again that I said something different I'll start to believe it myself.

Wrong again. By the second Williams fight Terrell was ranked by the WBA.

 

Jake Lamotta