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

I honestly can't believe I have to explain that Machen wasn't the same upon his return, or that Patterson facing Chuvalo, Ingo, and Quarry (who's inclusion baffled me most, and who he never officially beat) means that he's not gonna have any problems beating Williams...

 

Well we don't know how far Williams would've went because that bullet ended his chances. We do know Williams would've at least been a WBA champion, and likely had a couple of defenses.

 

yes 27 year old 51-4 Williams was well within his prime by the time he fought Miteff. Can we say the same about Chuvalo?

you have plenty to say about it being okay for Williams being knocked flat at the age of 20 in his 35th fight. Here, 20 year old Chuvalo draws in The first fight with Miteff which was in 1957 when Chuvalo was 14-2 and would still latter lose to Pete Radmacher. Clearly he had a way to go before he would beat the likes of Doug Jones and Mike deJohn in 1963-1965 Still, you neglect to mention that Chuvalo knocked Miteff through the ropes and nearly knocked out Alex in the last round. The papers said only Chuvalos “inexperience” prevented him getting the kayo. The second fight, some three years and seven fights later a 23 year old Chuvalo had this to say:

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  "I can't understand how one judge voted against me. I was in control of the fight all the way and it's beyond me why they didn't stop it in the 6th round." -George Chuvalo

prime Chuvalo of 1964 or 20 year old Chuvalo of 1957?

Chuvalo himself did not think he ever got a fair shake at home. He was pretty livid with his own local commission over a number of things.

 

We don't know that

 

How do we “at least” know Williams would have been a WBA champion?

we don’t know how the third fight might have went.

The second fight was an untidy rough fight but Terrell showed he had already solved Williams style.

The film shows that the parts where he was hurt by Williams he had learned to smother him and hold. The rest of the time he was able to beat Williams to the punch.

The Daniels fight showed that Williams was prone to wait too long and capitalise against good fighters when he had them hurt.

 

Also I never disputed they weren't more dangerous punchers than Williams only Quarry (I also wouldn't say Chuvalo was a more dangerous puncher at all), as you seem to be claiming. Please don't put words in my mouth.

 

Well I was responding to this part "It would either have told us Williams would win the series and go no further than Terrell"

As for Williams waiting too long to capatalize against good fighters, it's laughable bull****. If anything his problem was, he would prematurely go in for the kill when he had his opponent hurt which is what happened against Satterfield, and Liston.

 

It seems we can go back and fort on this forever without coming anywhere, but saying "and he's been crucified to hell by the likes of yourself." is the kind of strange things that pop up when discussing Williams with you. Crucified how? By saying that he didn't stand out from the other top contenders? Because more than that I don't think I've ever said.

I think he was a level below Liston and Ali and a bit below Patterson too, on par with the other top contenders at the time. He was one of the heavier punchers around, but couldn't translate that to fully being a deadly KO artist, even though he was dangerous. His best win was probably Terrell, and it's hard to know just how good Terrell was at that time. Almost certainly better than he was viewed, but harder to say how far he was from the top contender he would become.

Was Terrell the best win because Williams didn't have more opportunity to prove himself against the likes of Chuvalo, Folley and Patterson? Maybe, maybe not. I think he would have wins if he met the other top contenders, but losses too. My 5 cents.

Was he avoided by them? Here I've long been frustrated that these claims are made without anything substantial to back it up. Recently there have been concrete examples of Patterson turning him down for first Machen and then Chuvalo and Jones turning him down for Billy Daniels. No sources have been given, but this might well be correct.

But Machen, Chuvalo and Daniels were alla ranked about the same as Williams at the time, so I'd like more in terms of what the purses were etc to think that Williams was the reason rather than money and other things. As for Patterson choosing Chuvalo instead, I don't think a fight with Williams would have sold out the MSG like the Chuvalo fight did.

As for how Williams would have done against the these guys, I'd have Patterson as a favourite against him but can see William's left hook ending things as well. The others are all close match-ups to me, where he would perhaps have the stylistic edge against Folley but less so against Chuvalo. But just guesses.

So this is pretty much my view on Williams and I think I've been pretty consistent with it. Saying I crucify him for anything is a clear sign of blind fandom imo.

This time I will leave it at that.

 

I didn’t know this. I guess Floyd was chasing his title that he lost to Liston.

 

That's actually a good point, but Miteff started boxing only about a month earlier than Chuvalo in their first bout so it's not like he was a seasoned vet by this time.

This is the same guy who said he was on his way to knocking Foreman out in their bout before the referee stopped it, and that he actually won his rematch with Ali.

 

Yeah, I’m not saying I agree with him on the Foreman and Ali front. But he definitely complained about Miteff not being stopped in round 6 with that 12 stitch cut and he definitely did knock miteff through the ropes and all but “out” because I have seen the photo.

 

But Miteff was already the 5th ranked contender at the time. He’d already beaten a contender like Nino Valdes and decent guys like Julio Mederos and john Holman.

As an Amateur Miteff was outstanding. From 140 contests, Miteff won 126, boxed eleven draw fights. In five years Miteff took eight titles in three classes; middlewieght, light-heavyweght and heavyweight.

 

As an amateur, Chuvalo was no slouch himself. As a matter of fact, he was the Canadian heavyweight champion.