Rocky Marciano vs Cleveland Williams

damn good fight, two of my favorite old time HWs to watch youtube...
I've probably seen a couple more of Marciano fights, and to be honest almost every William's fight I can find he gets KOd in....often times early in the fight.
you'd think then easy win for Marciano, but i would say Not So Fast My Friend...
style wise, i think William's could give Marciano a lot of problems and i do believe he held advantages in hand speed and reach over Marciano. his power wasnt great, not on the level of Marciano, but it was enough to get him respect, and combined with his speed that could make for a long night vs the shorter Marciano.
as one poster alluded to previously William's was handling Liston very well in the early going, but that success turned out to be short lived.
so the big question in my mind is: Can William's stay out of Marcianos shorter range for the full 15, and can maintain his composure when he does get caught?
for the sake of argument I will say YES, yes he can. he will fight Marciano at a distance and land his quick fisted combos with enough regularity to keep Marcianos bombs of his chin for the majority of the night, despite a few scary moments in the later rounds.
Marciano is the aggressor the whole night, but after 15 rounds William's cruises to a hard fought UD and Marciano gets cut and bloodied along the way.

 

Yeah, the second Daniels fight was probably the most important fight in his career. Daniels was coming off a win against the WBA's #1 contender, and the winner was going to get a shot at the WBA title so the stakes were definitely high. Williams won comfortably (as a matter of fact, he won so comfortably Daniels was never the same) and earned the title match, but alas it was not meant to be.

 

You know that the Texas State Trooper who shot Williams was invited to the title bout, Ali vs Williams on Nov 14 1966 in Houston, Texas.

 

Yes, Williams later forgave him. Mind boggling to me, Williams never filed a lawsuit in hindsight. Could've made a lot of $$$

 

The Rock would burrow under those big punches, get in close and go to work. Stoppage around 5-8.

 

I can see Rocky having to get off the mat , surviving early , and coming on to stop Cleveland late in a fight that would have aged Marciano badly... But I wouldn't bet a nickel on him doing it.

 

That seems a fair post to me.

 

So what are we left with when all is said and done?

A TKO of Alex Miteff.

A draw against Eddie Machen.

A points win over Billy Daniels.

An SD loss to Ernie Terrell.

If he was likely to beat Rocky Marciano, then I would expect better results than this, against the contenders of the day.

This reads like the resume of a man who would be Rocky Marciano's 50th victim.

 

And that's also a fair post.

If Williams beats Marciano it's an early KO where he catches him big and finishes the deal. I think a big puncher like him could do it.

If I were betting, though, and going on actual track record, I'd feel more comfortable with the cash on Rocky.

 

Agreed. The 37-0 Foreman, who's best win was over an unranked Chuvalo, who's resume was made up of primarily lower-level fighters, couldn't stop Peralta which the 6-4 Levi Forte easily accomplished, that guy's not beating Frazier.

Oh wait.

Also, you conveniently left out Williams best win, a KO over Terrell which more than cancels out the dubious SD Terrell got in the rematch.

 

Agreed. People who think this is some walk in the park for Marciano are seriously mistaken.

 

Nah it's no easy fight. You can see Williams is a quality boxer.

 

But Foreman did beat Frazier.

Yes if he had fallen under a bus before the Frazier fight, I would not be making him favorite over Frazier, and that would be eminently reasonable given what was known.

I left this win out for a reason.

Terrell was still developing as a fighter.

The second fight was more a reflection of how they measured up at their respective bests.

 

Rocky would hurt him over and over, with the punches adding up an stopping Cleve around 10-13 or so. Cleve is game, but he is vastly overrated (ala Tua and Lyle) in this forum where his heroics in hypotheticals eclipse what he was able to achieve in reality.

 

I think you missed my point.... by quite some margin. You were using Williams' competition to assess his chances against Marciano. Using this same criteria, Frazier would've wiped the floor with Foreman. But he didn't, you know why? Because Foreman had a huge stylistic advantage, just like Williams does over Marciano even if some don't like to admit it. Marciano doesn't have the elusiveness of Machen, the power of Liston, the length and awkwardness of Terrell, nor does he have the boxing ability of any of them.

You do realize both fights were within a year of each other right? Terrell had been fighting for over 5 years at this point and had never been beaten clearly (all of his losses were SDs that many had going for him), let alone knocked out. After this loss, he went undefeated for FIVE years until running into a peak Muhammad Ali. So this idea, that Terrell who'd turned pro five years earlier was still green, got knocked out, then all of a sudden became this world class fighter in less than a year simply holds no water. He may not have been at his best against Williams but he was damn close to it.