Carl Williams

Williams beat Berbick to get his shot at Tyson. Williams wasn't especially inactive before the Tyson fight. It was post Tyson that it became more of an issue.

 

Overall Witherpoon had a better resume than Williams.

It'd true he was hot and cold, though.

Witherspoon's main drawback was inconsistently in conditioning which seemed to affect his performance, at times. He looked way out of shape when Bonecrusher destroyed him. A better conditioned Witherspoon easily decisioned him the previous year.

Also, Tim was certainly more durable. The second Bonecrusher fight was an abberation.

 

He also lost a decision to one Jerry Jones, an unorthodox lefty, in 1992. That's when I knew Williams was done.

 

I think it was too close to call it a robbery.

 

The late 80s heavyweights, sure. In the first half of the 80s it was Holmes the villain.

 

Every time I've seen that fight I thought Holmes pulled it off by two points. Carl mostly just surprised everybody (like Witherspoon).

In fact, Witherspoon hurt Larry and came far closer to ending his reign than Carl did.

Probably the thing that had the most lasting impression on people during the Williams fight was his outjabbing the greatest jabber in the division. It meant Carl was outdoing an acknowledged master of the art.

But watch the fight again, do you folks really believe he pulled it off? Watch Holmes throughout, he made the fight far more often than not.

Or I could be wrong.

 

Agree to disagree then.

 

The wide margin WAS a robbery...I have to admit that. In no way did Larry commandingly win that fight.

But he did win it. Imo.

 

Carl did NOT do enough to win the heavyweight championship, much less from a champ who'd been incumbent for seven years and undefeated. He just surprised the hell out of everyone involved and fought a very good fight.

Had Carl made much more of an effort to be aggressive...watch the last few rounds of that fight and tell me who came across most like a champion.

 

The alphabetical champions should never be remembered as champions anyway. For years i agonized over who the best of them were but it really shouldnt matter because history wont remember any of them as actual champions anyway. Tim Witherspoon is just like the rest of them. A contender. The only champions of the 1980s were Holmes, spinks and Tyson. So any debate over witherspoon being any better than williams is no different than deciding if Eddie Machen was better than Zora foley or if Arturo godoy was better than Tommy Farr. It dosnt matter.

 

There are good grounds for this reasoning. I hesitate to lump Weaver in with the rest of them because at the time Tate was being considered likened to a young Ali. And Coetzee was both a righteous contender at the time (only decisioned by Tate beforehand) and of course, later a champ. Spinks I don't count for what for me are obvious reasons.

But I'm overall completely with you, even Weaver was not Holmes or (later) Tyson. Those last two were the only heavyweight champs of the 80s...period imo.