A deeper dive on Holman Williams' greatness.

It's been a while since I've done one of these, and how many better choices than Holman Williams are there ?

Right off the bat, a mere 5 fights into his career, he would lose to the more experienced Chuck Woods in an 8 rounder, who already had almost 40 fights under his belt, and would later hold a win over Tony Canzoneri prior to losing in a rematch, always being one big win short of being a genuine contender. He would rematch Woods in a 10 rounder a few months later, but the results ended up being the same.

After a series of 2 dozen fights to gain experience, Williams would have his first standout win, one over the former Featherweight champion of the world, the underrated Tommy Paul. Soon after, he would win the colored Lightweight title with an 8th round stoppage win over Baby Tiger Flowers. A month later, he would defeat the formerly #9 ranked Lightweight, Lew Massey, who had just fallen off the ranks prior to facing Williams. One fight after that, he would avenge his 2 losses to Chuck Woods.

Then, he would meet his biggest rival, Herbert Lewis Hardwick, better known as Cocoa Kid. Williams would lose his first 2 fights against him, both of them being back to back, but they were very close and competitive. He then boxed a draw with Richie Fontaine, who had recently gone 1-1 with a developing but still very good version of Henry Armstrong. He then defeated the declining Tony Falco, who was a genuinely dangerous contender a few years prior. After an off night against Johnny Lucas, whom he faced only a few days after a previous match, he would finally gain a win over his rival, the now #7 ranked Welterweight, Cocoa kid. A mere 10 days later, he would KO Luther ''Slugger' White in 4 rounds, who in years to come, would prove himself as a top 5 worthy Lightweight contender. A month later, he would go on to also claim a victory over Bobby Pacho.

Williams would then challenge for Cocoa Kid's Colored Welterweight title, but would be in the wrong side of what appeared to be a gift decision. The audience was so upset they ended up storming the ring. After that, Williams would avenge his loss to Johnny Lucas and would go on to defeat the aggressive contender Young Gene Buffalo, as well as the #4 rated Saverio Turiello, the fringe contender Paulie Walker, and the former contender Jack Portney. He then dropped a decision to the capable Michele Palermo, who had recently also claimed a victory over Cocoa Kid. Soon after, he met another fellow murderer's row member, this time it was Eddie Booker, whom he held to a draw. Prior and after the Booker draw, Williams would also hold 2 victories over the tough contender Johnny Jackson, who already held a win over Cocoa Kid, and would proceed to go 2-1 against Little Tiger Aaron Wade.

After once again defeating Young Gene Buffalo, he would meet his most famous adversary, the consensus best fighter of the black murderer's row, Charley Burley. Williams would get dropped 3 times in the 4th round, prior to taking charge and winning every round but one past the 7th, resulting in his victory. After a draw against Izzy Jannazo, who would be as highly rated as #2 by the end of 1940, he would again lose to the #7 rated Cocoa Kid. After defeating the #10 rated Welterweight, Steve Mamakos, he would avenge his draw over Jannazo with a 10 round decision win, and he would also outpoint the future #6 Welterweight contender Joe Legon.

Jannazo would beat him once more, stealing his place as the divisional #2. Williams would keep moving forward however, beating the fringe contender Eddie Nolan and Younge Gene Buffalo again twice more. Then, he would set his sights to Middleweight, targeting the #7 rated Middleweight, Antonio Fernandez, whom he beat twice, with a victory over the #4 rated Welterweight Jimmy Leto in-between, for good measure. Then, he would outlcass the up and coming Jose Basora, who would be rated in the top 5 among the Middleweights in a single year afterwards.

He would have more trouble winning after this, his incredibly fragile hands having already changed his style into that of a defensive specialist. He would box a draw again with Cocoa Kid, prior to beating Basora and avenging that draw by beating Cocoa Kid a mere 10 days later. Unfortunately for him, both Cocoa Kid and Charley Burley wanted revenge, both beating him within the span of a week. He then twice defeated the #4 rated Middleweight, Kid Tunero, with an added loss to Cocoa Kid sandwiched in-between, and another Burley loss right after, who was now the #2 rated Middleweight. After this, he would again overcome his old rival, Johnny Jackson. He would then challenge Burley for the vacant Colored Middleweight title, but would be unfortunate to lose by a 9th round stoppage loss.

Lady luck would smile upon him next, as he would finally overcome Burley after losing 3 in a row against him, allowing him to claim the colored Middleweight title. Cocoa Kid would again beat him for the umpteenth time however, managing to be as highly ranked as #4 even after so many years of fighting everyone available. Holman's next big victory was against the #7 rated Middleweight, Joe Carter. He would schedude another contest between himself and Burley, the latter was soundly ahead on the cards, but fortunately for Williams, and unfortunately for the usually unlucky Burley, the ref declared the fight a no contest due to inactivity, with 2 minutes remaining in the fight. A few months later, Williams would drop 2 decisions to Kid Tunero, and the now #4 rated Jose Basora.

However, he would once again prove what a great fighter he was, managing to outpoint the #1 rated Light Heayvweight in the world, another murderer's row member, Lloyd Marshall. After gaining another win over Joe Carter, he would finally rematch the now #3 rated Light Heavyweight Eddie Booker, who had previously held him to a draw. This time however, Williams's hand would be raised in triumph. His winning streak continued with the #5 rated Middleweight Steve Balloise, Young Gene Buffalo, as well as with 2 wins over the #9 rated Middleweight, Jack chase.

Booker would manage to close his series with Williams with a win, leaving it at 1-1-1, but would have to retire after that last bout. Williams carried on, beating the #4 rated Jose Basora, Jack Chase twice more, and splitting 2 fights with Lloyd Marshall, leaving their own trilogy at 2-1 in William's favor. He boxed 2 draws with Cocoa Kid and Jose Basora, prior to beating Kid Tunero and one more murderer's row member, Little Tiger Aaron Wade. After a draw and loss to Joe Carter and Cocoa Kid respectively, he would at last beat the Cocoa Kid after so many attempts, in their last fight together.

He once more rematched Joe Carter and Charley Burley, beating them both in their last fights together as well, ending up 3-0-1 with Carter and 3-3 with Burley, with that no contest leaving the series tied rather than having Burley win it. Williams would meet with one last murderer's row member, the #10 rated MW Bert Lytell, whom he would hold to a draw prior to winning a rematch. Williams would have one last hurrah against the #1 rated Light Heavyweight, Archie Moore, the almost murderer's row member. Moore would pay him back, stopping him in the 11th round a month later. One more victory against the #7 rated Little Tiger Aaron Wade, and it was all downhill from there.

The #8 rated Bert Lytell would outpoint him in a 10 rounder, though he would manage to defeat the hard hitting Bob Satterfield afterwards. The #4 rated Marcel Cerdan would also outpoint him. He ran the #1 rated Jake LaMotta close, losing a decision that some disagreed with. He lost to the #9 rated Sam Baroudi, to the unremarkable Henry Brimm, once more to Bert Lytell, twice more to Jose Basora, and one last one to Daniel James.

Despite his lack of dominance over his contemporaries, his winning resume is up there with anyone's.

 

Thanks Greg, me doing these practically daily for almost 2 months and the increasing shortage of fighters made it harder to continue, but I'm not giving up on them. As for Cocoa Kid beating Williams, it's probably a case of styles make fights. Williams had beaten a good chunk of fighters that would end up beating Cocoa Kid, but he struggled doing it himself, he probably had cast some weird hex over him.

 

That's actually the reason I made my books thread the other day. A lack of ratings just makes it harder for me to add context to how good a victory was. Just saying that 'X fighter beat X and X and X fighter'' would end up getting stale and convoluted, so I wanted the most information possible for pre 1920's fighters, to see how I could implement it for those older fighters. So if you've got anything for someone like Leonard, Fitzsimmons, McFarland, Gans etc, I'd appreciate you sharing it.

 

I wouldn't say that rankings are necessary for these, though they're obviously helpful. But I would like a deeper dive on who these fighters were and who they faced, which is much harder to research the further back we go.