Roy Tiger Williams

I remember reading about Holmes saying Ali owed Williams money. I read this decades ago so I'm doing the best I can to remember. But Holmes said Williams beat on Ali for a couple days or so. No rope a dope. He said they were going at it and Williams was kicking his butt. Then he got paid and fired.

 

Williams was a huge, heavy handed, aggressive heavyweight with fast hands and a good jab, but he lacked the consistency, defense, gas tank, and overall skill needed to beat an elite heavyweights. There are no real standout wins on his record. Jimmy Young, in my view, was still too green at the time to be considered a solid win. Williams is a guy who could be at the lower end of the top 10, like Sanders.

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I've seen insiders state that Tiger was one of those guys that was hell on wheels in sparring, just awesome, superb.............but he wasn't the same man on fight night.

 

Ali did not throw Holmes out of his camp Holmes and his then manager decided to leave, it was an amicable parting.

 

Very average. Lost to everyone with a name that he fought including Joe Frazier in the amateurs.

 

I’ve been around guys like that — hell in the gym but you don’t ever see it when they fight — maybe glimpses, but not the full-on version you’ve seen spar.

Sometimes it’s sparring partner syndrome. They spend a long time as a sparring partner where they ‘work with’ the guy they’re being paid to spar with and never can find the ‘on’ switch to let it all loose when it’s for real.

Tiger Roy ended up making a living sparring because he had trouble getting fights because people knew what he was capable of and didn’t want any part. You never knew if you fought him that you might actually get the full-on version. So why risk it?

Anyone around at the time, Ali included, knew Roy could fight. And at his best could be more than a handful for any contender. Not many top guys decided to test themselves against him.

 

A solid fringe contender with a lot of heart and a big punch. Was in some fun scraps too.

 

He lost to Rixhard Dunn! Williams and Shavers almost beat each other to death in a crazy fight.
Roy made a lot of noise when he punched.

 

He was a slightly above average fighter, big for his day and slow but somewhat durable. The fact the Richard Dunn went the distance with him (by 1pt. + Harry Gibbs as REF) and actually beat him speaks volumes about his punching power. Shavers was the only one to stop him so nothing to be embarrassed by.

What I remember of the Shavers fight both men were exhausted and Shavers won but good action. While Shavers could punch very well, strong chinned fighters like Ron Stander and Quarry took his best and stopped him. Earnie kicked like a mule but guys that were ko'd before like Bob Stallings survived him and won as well as Tex Cobb and Mercado. Also, I remember Vincente Rondon light heavyweight who was ko'd by Bob Foster and Ron Lyle going the distance with Earnie so ko technique as well as stamina come into play.

Still one well-placed punch by Earnie was never fun for anyone.

 

Certainly a Hot and Cold fighter and many good points already made.
Just like to point out that Williams got a fight in Vegas with "on the cusp" undefeated Walter Moore out of Chicago that Ernie Terrell was promoting. He beat Moore up in a pretty big upset and it was reportedly a very one-sided fight over six rounds. Moore was on his way to a title shot most likely. Match this with his sluggish loss to sluggish himself Richard Dunn and the hot and cold thing really shows itself.

 

Bummy, Gibbs actually scored the fight 39 3/4 to 38 3/4 on the old British 5 to four and three quarter point-a-round system. So, in rounds, Gibbs had Dunn the winner 5-1-2 over Williams after 8 rounds. A very different system to what we're used to these days.