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

"consider the source"

Thanks for the nice comment.

As for the gist of this post, I don't know what you are talking about. I don't think I have ever posted on Greg Page.

 

Jason,

My sincere apologies, I confused you with a poster with a very similar name who posts here. His name is John Thomas, who is way out there on Greg Page, and spent 25 posts telling us how Larry Holmes ducked him. That's what I meant by "consider the source"

 

I don't know what you are talking about in the first sentence.

And don't confuse disagreeing with your opinions on anything with having an agenda. Any individual's opinion is only the way he looks at things, not truth with a capital T to which we must all kowtow.

I am in the middle on this one. I think Williams was better than his harshest critics maintain, but not nearly as good as his more emotional supporters claim.

I also think Williams is somewhat of an enigma because he just didn't fight that many top men during his prime. Why? That is what confuses me. DeJohn, Valdes, Besmanoff, Harris, Folley, Machen, and Patterson all fought Liston within a three year span, but only Machen of this group ever fought Williams. I haven't heard a convincing explanation for why this is so.

 

I'm not addressing you, I wouldn't waste my time.The underlined says it all about you.
Cleveland Williams 212 lbs beat Billy Daniels 191 lbs by UD in round 10 of 10

• Date: 1963-03-09
• Location: Convention Center, Miami Beach, Florida, USA
• Referee: Jimmy Peerless 97-92
• Judge: Carl Gardner 98-93
• Judge: Jim Ruby 98-91

"Third ranked Cleveland Williams scored a bloody unanimous decision Saturday night over 6th ranked heavyweight Billy Daniels in their nationally televised 10 round bout. Daniels rocked Williams in the 1st round with a whistling right to the chin. But after that round the fight belonged to Williams, who stalked Daniels like a big cat throwing effective punches. Williams opened up a cut over Daniels' right eye in the 3rd round, another one over the left eye in the 8th round and bloodied Daniels' nose in the 9th. Daniels was in trouble several times, and he slipped twice but he was never knocked down. In the explosive 9th round, Williams staggered Daniels three different times with powerful jaw-crushing left hooks. But each time the game and crafty Daniels managed to clinch until the cobwebs cleared from his head." -United Press International

 

Did they want to?

 

On Machen, I don't think he was eliminated. I think he was the guy who would have gotten the next shot at Liston if Sonny had gotten past Ali, as was expected. Sonny had unfinished business with Machen as Eddie went the full 12 with him. I think that would have been the hook for a Liston-Machen re-match. However one views Williams, he would have been a hard sell for a third go against Liston after his two KO losses.

 

and in the February 10, 1964 issue of Sports Illustrated, Machen is quoted as saying,

"Liston is not the smartest guy in the world. He moves like a train--one track all the time. When he finds a sitting duck like Patterson, or a Williams, he knocks them off the tracks."

Such contrasting evaluations is why I don't pay much attention to quotes. What are facts is that Liston badly outpointed Machen while Machen fought a draw with Williams.

What the two quotes have in common are put downs of Liston, I think because Eddie was angling for a shot at Liston as the champion. Liston was not champion when Machen fought Williams, but he was scheduled to fight Patterson in a couple of months, and the consensus was that Liston would become the new champion, as indeed he did.

 

It is only fair to ask why they wanted to fight Liston? Is it really plausible that Williams was more threatening than Liston?

 

"Charlie Powell was just like Williams"

Not even close. The only thing they shared was physique. Williams was much the better fighter over the long haul and has a case for being a top level contender. Powell was at best a fringe contender whose big achievement was an upset of an aging and out of shape Valdes. After the Valdes upset, Powell in his next two fights got badly outpointed by Harris and blown out in less than a minute by DeJohn.

 

But this isnt a comparison between Liston and Williams ,its Williams versus Ingo.Johansson wanted no part of Liston

 

Good question ,was it the money?

 

How is this of even remote relevance to my post?

Wish someone told that to Machen, Terrell, and Liston. They wouldn't have had nearly as hard of a time as they did with him.

Subjective, but mainly irrelevant.

Show me where I said that or even implied it and I'll like every post you make for a week.

My point which seems to have escaped you, is that Patterson wouldn't beat Williams on the sole basis that Terrell did. Terrell had tools that Patterson didn't and represented a different box of tricks than Patterson.

Satterfield beat a 20 year old Williams, who was green, undeveloped, growing, untested, had been out of the gym for a while, fighting on a 2 day notice. Logic dictates he wouldn't be at his best.

Are you being wilfully ignorant at this point? Williams was 33 at this point, had a bullet in him, and was a shell of the fighter he'd once been. To even mention this fight, is laughably disingenuous, perhaps even more so than your usual.

Bingo, you finally got one right. Sonny Liston, a H2H monster in his prime, was the only man to beat Williams even remotely close to his peak. And even he had a few pickups, almost getting knocked out in the first round by his own admission.

No. With the exception of Liston, they all fought Williams when he was nowhere near his best and even against the aforementioned men he still put up quite the fight, with the obvious exception of Ali.

OK, using your logic, Williams was at a higher level than Patterson based on their respective performances against him and he would win by KO. Thanks for proving my point.

Maybe, but I wouldn't bet on it tbh (and this is coming from someone who has Floyd in his top 5 favorites). Williams was much more powerful, and faster than Cooper and had a completely different style to him. A style that proved problematic for Patterson.

 

Don't see how it could be as most of the money in fights in those days was in the television money, not in live gate money.

Frankly, I don't know and don't understand what happened with Williams. He should have been a guy the networks were anxious to spotlight on their boxing shows as he was a big guy with a big punch, but he spends years fighting in secondary venues largely unknown to the general public. Liston was on TV a lot while on his way up.

 

Don't know about that, as in the Sports Illustrated article just before the Liston-Patterson fight, Johansson hadn't even seen a film of Liston, and doesn't seem to have been impressed when he did see the film of the Machen fight. In the event, after his victory Liston said Johansson had to wait in line, but in the wake of his poor performance against London, and on the advice of his neurologist, Ingo retired.

More to the point with Ingo, he looks good in the quick KO's of Machen and Patterson, but some of his other filmed fights tell a different tale. He plods a lot of rounds with Erskine and never looks very good. Worse is the early fight with one Uber Bacilieri which is currently on you tube. All I see Johansson showing is pretty quick feet. I saw no left hook. His jab was sort of a pawing, sticking his left out high and then bringing it down like he was swatting a fly on a wall. Bacilieri had no trouble avoiding his rights. There seemed to be few good punches from either and Bacilieri never seems to be in any trouble. Bacilieri was at best a fringe trial horse in the Euro scene of the day.

Watching that film, it is hard to believe you are watching a future champion.

Johansson was greenish, but he was 23 and had behind him an Olympic amateur career.

 

I disagree with the report and so did most of the posters on here who scored the first 5 rounds.

Do we know if Williams would have fared much better against Harris and Dejohn? Powell looked quite good on film. If Williams can look so good losing then it’s probably worth looking how well Powell could fight in a fight he also lost.

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That was not the way Ingo felt when he finally got to see film of Liston. There is a good Sports illustrated article reporting this event. Ingo thought Sonny would have been better.

yes! This is the article I read as well.

Williams was not faster than Henry Cooper. Henry was a more advanced boxer than Williams. A strong puncher.