You get a contender like Williams from time to time. The gym rats buzz about him, and the contenders are scared of him, but the results don't back that up! I suspect that David Tua might be such an enigma, if the only surviving footage of him was the Lewis fight and the Byrd fight!
The Cleveland Williams who fought Muhammad Ali, on Nov 14 1966, in Houston, Texas, was a shell of his former self after taking a bullet from the Texas State Trooper, in 1964. Even Ali himself said, I wish that I could Have Fought Williams Before He Was Shot. True about some of those things in the posts, but people like The Acorn, as Ali called Earnie Shavers, was knocked out by Jerry Quarry, in round 1, on Dec 14 1973, in Madison Square Garden. Read the articles on Williams, describing the surgeries that saved his life, he never recovered from those wounds to be what he was before he was shot. Not saying he would have gone on to be a great fighter, but we will never know.
The thread is called “Cleveland Williams one of the best heavyweights never to be champion” William’s is most certainly not one of the best heavyweights never to be champion because he did not have even one signature win. He was simply a regular contender who came and went. Like mike DeJohn or buddy bear. Ken Norton beat Ali. I imagine ken qualifies as one of the best never to be champion. Too many people have Williams in the wrong category. He is not champion material so he can’t be one of the best never to be champion. What he is like is somebody like Pat Comeskey or Charlie Rezlaff. A big puncher who got knocked off along the way when ever they stepped up.
He was a big puncher and a good athlete who also had some flaws in his game. Powerful punchers do intrigue the public. I think even though he lost to Liston it was that Cleveland gave a good account of himself in both fights. Williams got alot of mileage out of it similar to Razor Ruddock against Tyson. It's dangerous to put too much stock into a fighter based on a loss. Sonny Liston did rave about Cleveland Williams power after their fights. Sonny wasn't the kind of guy to go around giving out compliments to be Mr Popularity. Williams power had to be for real.
Of course he wasn't. The difference between a dangerous fringe contender like Mike DeJohn and an elite contender like Cleveland Williams is that despite some good wins DeJohn's career is also sprinkled with losses - including to men who tried and failed to beat Williams. Williams, on the other hand, went 14 years without being clearly defeated by anyone who was not a prime ATG.
That is your opinion and I'm sure it will be taken for what it is worth,just like your statement that Williams was intimidated by Dick Richardson butting his way out of their fight to avoid a beating,something Richardson was notorious for and also did against DeJohn in their second fight. By drawing with Machen,Williams showed he was at least as good as Eddie,many gave him a live chance with Patterson when Machen was prime.Why wouldn't Williams be in with as good a chance of cracking Patterson's china chin and taking the title given the opportunity?
Um... because no, of course you can't say that of either of those men. Like DeJohn, both suffered multiple losses in their prime to opponents who were a long way from being ATGs.
It is exactly the same. Only difference is you chose to excuse Williams losses by saying he was either too young or too old. Or that nobody else could beat the guys that beat him. However, let’s assess only this period where williams was prime. Let’s only include the period before he was shot by a cop and after the beating from Bob Satterfield. Let’s look... So right in his prime Williams is knocked flat as a pancake twice by Sonny then in important fights he cannot get a win against either Eddie Machen or Ernie Terrell. The only meaningful win during the period where he isn’t being demolished by Liston or gunned down by a policeman is two lacklustre points wins over billy the barber. That’s it! The earlier pre rank win over Terrell was not an important fight. And the win over Mittef is just a stock win over a fridge guy who would lose as many fights as he was winning. Its like including Frank Bruno’s win over Quick Tillis as some kind of fete. It isn’t. Please don’t think I am desperate to go to extraordinary lengths to diminish Williams here. All of this stands up. It’s clear to see and is all well documented historical fact. So far as the best heavyweights never to win world titles go don’t include guys with unimpressive results against known opposition just because they lost well against a great fighter.
