Just watched his title fight v Holmes. Unlucky not to get the verdict. Young , unbeaten and very talented up to that point . Anybody any insights as to why his career nosedive from there ? Not chapter and verse on his fight record, but more insights or observations on why such a talented guy never flew so high again ?
The easy answer is he was chinny. Jesse Ferguson literally corkscrewed him to the canvas with one of those left hooks. Ferguson wasn't exactly pillow-fisted, but those shots shouldn't have had THAT big an impact on William's. Then getting caught and embarrassed on national TV against Weaver kind of put him on ice a bit for a while.
He was ultimately a late 80s heavyweight and he did what they all did, which was wait around for his turn to have Tyson beat the crap of him.
I thought he beat Holmes, great boxer but weak chin, and not too good defensively, he should have kept his hands higher.
He was a talented boxer. I was fan. 6-4 with an 84 inch reach. Good quickness and coordination. He really upset the applecart when he dominated Bert Cooper. At the the Coop was hot and extremely overconfident. The Truth put on a boxing clinic. He had a flaw against lefthooks. I thought he deserved to win the IBF title against Holmes. He outjabbed the master. Carl was a good, classy dude. The Truth could fight. One of the great nicknames.
Carl Williams was a good fighter but his career lost momentum a couple of times. I don’t think there was any shame in getting caught early by Weaver and Tyson. Those two could really hit. It wasn’t that Williams did anything wrong, they were good fighters too. Without question, Williams was still one of the top fighters. I just wish more of them fought each other. Williams could easily won a rematch with Weaver but it never happened. Thomas vs Williams would have been a good fight. Tubbs vs Williams. Tucker vs Williams, Biggs vs Williams. Smith vs Williams. They should have happened. Around 1985- 1987 I think Carl was as good as any of them and would have won more than he lost. He beat Berbick and he beat Witherspoon. The Witherspoon fight was a split verdict that went to Tim, but Williams really won.
I reckon the Holmes loss took away a fair amount of his confidence to. He probably thought he'd never get a title win, especially when Tyson came along.
Maybe the 15 hard rounds with Holmes just took its toll on him and that was as good as it got though I do remember seeing a film of him beating up Bert Cooper. He didn’t look particularly chinny until after the Holmes fight though Holmes wasn’t really a big puncher.
Holmes lost a LOT of accuracy with his overhand right (which was always a really solid, though far from a necessarily fight-ending punch) after the Cooney fight, and it kept getting worse with every defense. That loss of accuracy was a huge factor in his fights from then on, and I think it can be argued that it lost the first Spinks fight for him (and made the Williams fight far harder than it ever should have been for him).
A lot of people agree with you, however I just don't think Carl did enough. The majority of the early and later rounds I gave to Larry. Two points ahead at the end. To be completely fair, I think both Carl and Tim kind of faded in their respective fights (in the later rounds) mostly due to inexperience. Had Carl and Tim had ten more fights (and mostly against quality contenders) before fighting Larry they would have given him a tough fight even a couple of years before they actually met him. That said they would have ultimately lost worse, too lol.
He was lined up to fight Biggs two or three times but it never happened. One was when Williams pulled out with a back injury . Up until fighting Tyson his record was still pretty good , but like many from that era he took alot of time out at his peak. From fighting Holmes in 85 until Witherspoon in 91, he fought just 10 times in 6 years. His career went downhill very quickly after then giving his overall record a poor look. I wonder why he was so inactive during that period between Holmes and Witherspoon? He had the Weaver loss, maybe as someone else suggested he was just biding his turn for a Tyson shot. I remember him getting stoped in round 1 and his camp appealed the result if I remember? I could never see what their problem was.
The Weaver loss proved more how much of a fluke Williams was against Larry more than how Weaver (whose prime was definitely over) was still a viable contender.