Cleveland Big Cat Williams gets a title shot on Sept 26 1962 instead of Sonny Liston.

No champion is flawless. We should all be able to envisage contrasting factors between individuals to demonstrate examples where all of them can be beaten. Especially in certain circumstances. I don’t think it is as simple as saying we need not worry about anyones chances excepting a prime Ali. Max Schmeling and Buster Douglas showed us that.

 

Schmeling and Douglas undeniably caught their victims well short of their greatest.

 

I’m not so sure that they did. They both overcame greater fighters with the perfect strategy. I believe, providing a fighter always knows exactly what the other guy is going to do before he does it, with the right homework, right conditions a lesser guy can win.

Schmeling had Louis’s number first time around. And that time around Schmeling always would have won. It wouldn’t matter how well prepared Louis was at that point. Max knew how to hit him. And Louis didn’t know how it was happening. I fully believe Joe was as in as good shape as he was for many other fights he won in that era.

Same with Douglas. Perfectly prepared and ready for everything Tyson was going to do, Douglas, had an absolute picnic. Made Tyson do what he wanted him to do. He worked him out. Once he worked out a way of beating Tyson to the punch he had him beat. Had him where he wanted. Because Tyson couldn’t do anything. And that was technically achieved. He was making Tyson do what he wanted him to do.

Don’t tell me Tyson wasn’t in shape. The pounding he took proved he was physically very well prepared.

if Douglas wanted to hit him with a right hand he made Tyson do what he needed him to do to land that punch. If he wanted to hit Tyson with his left, he knew what to do to make Tyson give him an opening for that punch as well. And so on. All night. Every punch.

having complete strategy control like that Tyson may as well have been tied to a chair. No matter what shape a great fighter is in, if he’s tied to a chair he can’t win.

 

It's well documented, by Joe's trainer, prior to the fight, that Joe had slacked during training and wasn't in his normal shape. So lets discount the part i bolded, completely. It's simply wrong.

It's also unanimously accepted that Louis wasn't yet peak. This is obvious. Now we can argue he had to go through the rite of passage of a loss to Max per his technical deficiency just like Ray Leonard did when completely owned mentally by Roberto Duran leading into their first fight. But that's whole other story.

Tyson's shenanigans are also well documented and tho he may or may not have got away with similar before he most certainly didn't here. It's also mostly accepted the cracks were starting to appear per the Rooney split, Givens etc. We saw Super Greg Page sit him on his keiber in sparring as well. An argument can be made perhaps it was Buster's night regardless but we will never really know.

That Tyson took the pounding he did absolutely does not tell us he was in shape. Douglas had not stopped a top 10 contender in his life.

 

I can well believe neither Louis or Tyson was in great shape for these fights, but I wouldn't take a trainer's words as gospel. Not saying he can't tell the truth, but he has an incentive to help his fighter's status and marketability with saying it was a one-off due to bad prep.

 

Yeah, at least it's hard to see that he can have been in such a **** poor shape as many will have you believe when he stood up for so long, and had enough in the tank to land a very good counter when taking a shellaking in the 8th.

 

I'm hearing you but Blackburn said it before the fight otherwise i would not have even mentioned it. Blackburn wasn't in the habit of such happenings. Prior to the rematch he actually said Louis had trained hard and he had no concerns he was going to win.

 

I guarantee Louis won big fights in the exact same condition he was for Schmeling first time around.

just as Tyson won big fights as well prepared as he was for Douglas.

Sometimes a guy has to lose to work out how to beat a certain kind of guy. And if that means preparing differently and working in different things so be it.

 

Powell was nothing like Williams and certainly not in his class. How many times do we have to go through this?

"Sonny outpointed Machen who Williams only managed to draw with". You know who didn't draw with him, fighters like Dejohn, Miteff, Quarry, Valdez, Rischer,

Williams fought more name fighters than Powell, beat more name fighters than Powell, and had better showings against name fighters against Powell. Powell fought LESS elite fighters than Williams and has less wins and a lesser winning percentage against them. By your own admission " Williams had 27 fights against name fighters from a total of 94 fights spread over 21 years . And he went 15-11-1 against that lot.

Powell fought 12 name fighters from a total of 39 fights over 12 years. and he went 5-8 with that lot." And that's not even taking into account the vast majority of Williams losses to name fighters were AFTER he'd been shot.

Moreso, he lost badly to fighters Williams had defeated decisively, and lost to men with losing records which I noticed you've avoided bringing up. If Williams had lost to the 10-19-4 Dave Fursch, we'd NEVER hear the end of it from you.

You'd be hard pressed even among Williams detractors on this forum, to find anyone who shares your laughable opinion besides maybe Bokaj.

 

I tend to try to think this through logically whenever cleveland williams is stacked up potential atg's. Obviously Williams would have to either knock Floyd out or win a decision. The 3 men that stopped Floyd were Ali, Liston, and Ingo. Williams certainly isn't in the same league as Ali and Liston. That leaves me with the Ingo bout. Do you think Williams could have duplicated Ingo's performance or have done better? Idk, maybe but I wouldn't put my money on it as the favorable outcome considering Floyd stopped Ingo in the following two bouts. That being said Williams is capable of knocking Patterson down. Hell, he's capable of knocking Patterson out I just don't think it would be likely.

A decision seems almost even more unlikely to me. Williams wasn't more skilled than Patterson at all. The only way he could beat Patterson on cards is if he knocked him down a few times during the fight. In that instance I still think he would lose the majority of rounds.

Patterson UD

 

"You'd be hard pressed even among Williams detractors on this forum to find anyone who shares your laughable opinion"


Did you read the post you are quoting? I think we agree on the basics, so why exactly is my take laughable?

 

I was referring to Choklab not you. Your post was solid, which is why I bought it up.

 

Jesus Christ this forums obsession with Cleveland Williams is bizarre. 10 pages on a guy who in the grand scheme of things accomplished very little in the sport.

"Williams fought more name fighters than Powell, beat more name fighters than Powell, and had better showings against name fighters against Powell."

Powell defeated Nino Valdes who was rated #2 at the time. Williams never defeated anyone as good as Valdes was when Powell fought him and never defeated anyone rated as highly as #2. Ive said it before and Ill say it again, some people are just obsessed with Williams' physique. Period. He looked like he should have been a badass so they think he was a bad ass, or want him to be a bad ass, or imagine him being a badass. His supposed power melted away against rated fighters. Check his KO percentage against fighters anywhere near the top 20. Its dismal. His fanboys will pretend he was ducked but can never tell us how he was ducked considering he was never rated anywhere near the top of the heap during Patterson, was knocked out twice in less than three rounds by Liston, was embarrassed by Ali, etc. They'll have you believe that getting shot drastically effected his career and yet when he was shot he was over 30 and had been a professional for 13 years, nevermind the fact that there isnt a marked difference in his ability or style after being shot that couldnt just as easily be attributed to age. Yes, in 64 he was rated #2 for 3 months based on a rather pedestrian win record over some of the weakest contenders at the time (and even then I cant see how he continually moved up the ratings throughout 1963/1964 because he wasnt fighting highly rated fighters at all. He was simply being moved up arbitrarily. Prior to that, when he was actually occasionally fighting warm bodies he never got higher than #4 and spent most of his career hovering in the lower part of the top ten. So the guy gets moved up to #2 for no reason in 1964 AFTER losing to Terrell and his only two paths to a title are Terrell, who had already beaten him, and Ali... So basically Williams' either has to hope he gets lucky against Terrell, who had dramatically improved over the version Williams defeated, or defeat a guy most people recognize as the greatest heavyweight in history. The division was getting deeper when Williams was shot and continued getting deeper for nearly a decade. Who exactly is Williams, a guy whose best performances are eaking out a draw against Machen in his hometown (Dont believe Swag's asinine biased tripe that Williams was robbed, he wasnt) and stopping a green Terrell (who was never that great on his best day to begin with), going to matchup with that his career trajectory changes if he wasnt shot??? Who? A comebacking Patterson? Quarry? Liston, Ali? Ellis? Terrell? Frazier? Bonavena? Chuvalo? Machen? Folley? Every one of those names would have been no worse than 50/50 against Williams and most would have been heavily favored over him head to head. Several of those names beat him badly enough that its doubtful age or not getting shot would have dramatically changed the outcome the outcome. The problem with these redundant threads about Williams that are always spammed by Swag is that people argue with a guy who is starting from the point that he firmly believes Williams was easily at least on par with really solid top contenders of the past who were at some point in their career consistent, clear, top three and sometime #1 contenders. You cant argue with someone who thinks that about Williams because the guy was never a consistent top 5 guy and never once in his career was he rated #1, nevermind being able to consistently fight his way back into the picture over time to show he was a really solid guy. He never ever did that. Period. So why waste time arguing with someone who is delusional when it comes to his record? He will sit there and argue that Williams was green with this loss, shot with that loss, blah blah blah while pretending Quarry was in his prime when losing to Machen etc. The goal posts dont just move for this guy the entire field is one fuzzy blur designed to make Williams appear better, more capable, more consistent, and more accomplished than his actually career and stats prove him to be.

 

You're an idiot. Do you not know the meaning of controversial? It means "giving rise or likely to give rise to public disagreement" their was disagreement about the winner of the bout, then and now correct?

1. Chuvalo already had an accomplished amateur career. Williams had none.

2. Miteff started the same time as Chuvalo, while Satterfield was much more experienced than Williams.

3. I'm not going to sit here and explain that Satterfield was a much more dangerous puncher than Miteff.

Don't even know how to respond to this. One of the dumbest things you ever posted and that's saying a lot.

Again Williams had no amateur career to speak of whatsoever, and was very inexperienced so 34 fights is not that much. You know this because we've been through this countless times. Williams' manager "I know Satterfield is a hell of a puncher and he's got a big edge in experience."

Oh yeah and he also took the fight on a 2 day notice.

Also weren't you just arguing Williams wasn't in his prime when he lost to Liston and got better later? Make up your mind.

He was not in his prime for the first bout but neither was Miteff.

Against Miteff in the rematch, he was a rated contender more experienced, had been pro for about 5 years, and still only beat him with a hometown advantage by half a point which again he should've lost.

So are we taking away Williams' KO losses to Ali and Liston as well (along with everybody else who stopped him except Foster) or does that not suit your agenda?

You never answered my question. Who did better against Terrell? Williams or Chuvalo.

 

Jesus have you ever heard of paragraphs? Anyways I'll respond to this one claim

"The problem with these redundant threads about Williams that are always spammed by Swag"

Check again. I haven't made a thread about Williams in 2 years.