Cleveland Williams vs George Chuvalo: Prime for Prime

Williams, either by KO or on points. Chuvalo is too limited.

 

What winning boxing masterclass have we to view of Williams on film against decent fighters?

 

It's not about a winning masterclass, it's about how he looks on film compared to Chuvalo, which is a lot better.

 

As to the actual fight fight, would we perhaps agree that a 7-3 or on the outside a 6-4 in favour of Chuvalo to be fair?

Funny, Cosell said he thought the judges might give it to Cleve - that didn’t necessarily mean he thought Big Cat won, perhaps he was factoring a degree of bias and sentimentality on behalf of the judges.

I just see their actual fight as a somewhat fair basis to retroactively favour Cleve in a prime v prime scenario - Cleve’s attributes that much more prone to decline than George’s.

When Cleve actually punched it appeared all his way - but he was much worse off stamina wise than Chuvalo, so during the many voids of inaction on Big Cat’s part, Chuvalo scored his points in workman like fashion.

71 Williams soaked some reasonable punishment vs Chuvalo so I figure younger Williams could soak at least same but won’t have to anyway - with that much more speed, reflex and stamina to go.

I rewatched the fight yesterday - Chuvalo was already badly marked up after 3 rounds - and he was truly rocked by Williams on several occasions during the fight.

I’d love the avail version to be cleaned up more if possible - I wonder if Smooth Legends could tweak it up?

 

Williams on film, even in his prime against Terrell and Daniels, he waited too long to get going. He was a spurt fighter. Fought like a wind up toy. Stalking stalking stalking then a flurry. Williams was never a guy to rack up points. Never busy enough to work behind a jab. It was never his style.

so what’s he going to do? Outwork a mauler? Of course he isn’t. Knock him out? That might be his only chance. Who the hell ever knocked out Chuvalo?

you put George and Williams in their prime against each other and it’s pretty much the same fight…just better quality.

 

What's his record against those men? Oh yeah 3-1. With the 1 being a disputed loss.

Didn't you describe Miteff as a mauler?

Williams did pretty good against him I reckon?

This is almost as atrocious as your claim that Jack O'holloran is 50-50 with a prime Williams.

 

I never said it was a minus, but you're acting like Chuvalo's win over Jones, is infinitely better than Williams win over Daniels... despite Daniels beating Jones, and by Jones' own admission deserving of being 2-0 against him.

As I stated earlier in this thread, Chuvalo had a stellar amateur career unlike Williams and was heavyweight champion of Canada. He may not have been prime, but he was definitely more experienced than Williams was.

Yes the rated washed up guy who was also rated the following two years, and would go to achieve a career best win and performance

I'm not going to sit here and explain to you why Satterfield is more dangerous than Miteff.

So is this an acknowledgement that Williams did improve after Satterfield after you previously claimed he didn't get "much better" after losing to Satterfield?

 

All very logical, but I don't think anyone's listening. The fact that the majority of those picking Chuvalo are picking him to win by knockout, when he couldn't even floor the washed-up version of Williams he met in real life, shows that logic isn't playing a big part in this.

 

Honestly, this bout is a no-brainer. I feel a much more competitive thread is Miteff and Chuvalo, the former of whom deserves to be 2-0 over Chuvalo

 

I agree - Chuvalo was probably more difficult to beat, because he didn't have Miteff's susceptibility to cuts, but head to head they were about equal, as was proved in the ring.

 

yeah 3-1 against two guys that don’t mean too much. It’s kind of not as good as john Tate being 2-1 against Coetzee, Bobick and Weaver. Who gave a cigar about that?

well he was a mauler when he was 15-1 and coming off a win over Nino Valdes like he was when Chuvalo drew with him. Seven defeats and three years later poor miteff was less of a mauler and more of a used up punchbag by the time Williams got a hold of him.

Williams was only ever 50-50 with any name guy as a proposition. And that’s no insult. He is a 50-50 proposition going in against Chuvalo and he would have been 50-50 going in with lacklustre Billy Daniels and Ernie Terrell too. So what? Just a reasonable opponent in the scheme of things. This is all a level bellow men like Patterson, Liston and Muhammad Ali isn’t it?

 

interestingly williams had an equal number of wins to Bob when they met. 34 fights is kind of a lot of fights to have had by age 20 isn’t it? I think Ingo and Frazier were ready to retire after that many fights albeit in much greater company than the blond cowboys, characters called graveyard Walters and baby booze.

who is more dangerous to Chuvalo though? Nobody is knocking him out. So for him, it’s the choice between a little, 25 pound lighter guy he can climb all over and manhandle compared to a similar sized roughhouse contender to himself who has just one loss on his record.

if he did it would only be in measure of Chuvalo improving after his draw with miteff..and to be fair to miteff, at the one loss point of his record he would have been better than he was at the 8 loss point of his career just three years later when Williams was able to bounce him around.

 

Man. You guys have a sucky taste in boxers.

 

We're dealing with someone who thinks Cleveland Williams was a 50-50 shot against a man he beat convincingly on two occasions. After a certain point you just run out of words.

 

If he’s going the distance each time he steps up what does that really say?

it says he’s the same kind of guy as Chuvalo doesn’t it?