Cleveland Big Cat Williams of 1960 vs Oscar Ringo Bonavena 1970.

Will have to find it on newspapers.com. See if I clipped it.

Yeah clear was a bit of an overstatement.

Just checked, Williams won the 5th round so if he would've been awarded the KD it would've been 10-8, so it would've been 45-44 for Terrell, in which case you're correct.

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/48465177/the-news-review/

"Williams the no. 5 contender felt he had turned in an upset. Most of the crowd of 10,000 partial perhaps to the hometown favorite and one judge agreed."

Here is a picture of Williams nearly flooring Machen: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/68996351/the-fresno-bee-the-republican/

"Cleve can punch and he's fast for a big man. He's twice as fast as Liston. I had to keep on him, keep on him, keep pressing and keep him from getting set"

It seems Machen was behind going into the tenth and needed to win it big to even get a draw, as a win was out of the question at that point (except on the third card, even a draw was never going to happen even if Machen floored Williams)

Tbh I'm probably making more of this than I should but I was just irked that Chok brought up Williams razor thin SD loss, and his draw with Machen but intentionally left out his KO win over Terrell less than a year prior.

 

Seems I was mistaken @sweetsci I was under the impression that Rischer was ranked going off the AP report but I guess not!

 

Yes, he was.

"Cleveland (Big Cat) Williams, 212, the 6th ranked heavyweight contender, scored a 7th round TKO Tuesday night over young Ernest Terrell, 202, of Chicago in a scheduled 10 round fight. After a slow start, Williams caught Terrell with a left cross in the 3rd round and had the fight his own way from then on. The Chicago fighter had opened a cut under Williams' left eye within the first minute of the 1st round. In the 6th, Williams hit him with a right hook followed by a left cross and Terrell hit the canvas but bounced back up after an eight count. Referee Sonny Liston stopped the bout at 1:47 of the 7th round after Williams had battered Terrell with a series of rights and lefts."

 

Yes, I'd been confidently making that claim myself for some time before I started digging into the monthly ratings. The AP really let us down on this one!

 

One thing I don't understand is, if they wanted to fit Peralta in the top ten, shouldn't Rischer at worst have been downgraded to #10?

 

@sweetsci I fully admit, I was wrong. I apologize!

 

It can be a frustrating thing to try to tie in monthly ratings to fight results. Of course we have the mags publication dates being months out of date, but the "for period ending..." helps with that. But even so, ratings published in the newspapers can lag behind when certain results don't make it around the world for a while. I've seen that quite a lot since I've been collecting monthly heavyweight ratings.

 

No worries!

 

You would think, right? Rischer had been ranked 9th ahead of Thad Spencer, 10th. But when Peralta got his big win and jumped to the #8 spot it was Rischer who got booted while Spencer hung onto #10, even though neither of them fought that month.

 

Very odd.

 

Marciano basically inspires the same feelings, although he died even earlier.

 

The problem with this strawman argument is that people who point out just how weak Williams resume was, how beatable he was, and why better/more accomplished fighters should be favored over him are somehow equated with hating the man. Whereas someone can tirelessly trot out Williams ad naseum across multiple discussions (some of which have nothing to do with him) in a desperate show of misplaced adulation and thats supposed to be a perfectly logical, measured show of support for a fighter who in nearly 100 fights beat two ranked contenders, both of whom are among the weaker contenders in history.

 

Marciano's different. People only "hate" on him because of the massive overrating on his behalf from his more deranged fans. I've never seen anyone go to such lengths to adamantly defend a fighter, from even the slightest criticism as Rocky fans. Rocky has gone from being one of my favorite fighters of all time, to just barely making my top 10.

 

I'll offer my 2 cents before getting dragged into the war.

This would be like a wolverine (Bonavena) vs a leopard (Williams). Like a wolverine, Bonavena is short but very strong and durable. He is rugged and sloppy but very scrappy and determined. As for Williams, what he shares with the leopard being quick and explosive with good reflexes and a well rounded mix of power, speed, and technique, but lacking in durablity and endurance. Both could crack with their best shots, which were bludgeoning hooks, but neither were very good finishers. Bonavena almost always stepped forward crowding guys and making them very uncomfortable with looping shots and rough house tactics but he did have good fundamentals and showed flashes of creativity here and there. Williams had good lateral movement for a taller guy and could box as well as slug.

Thus I see this fight going the distance. Bonavena would constantly try to crowd Williams who would back off and then throw rapid fire hooks and jabs to intercept him. There would be lots of shoving, elbows, body shots, wrestling, and wild trades at ring center. Williams lands the cleaner and more effective punches while Bonavena is the busier guy who wins some rounds on aggression and volume. A knock down is certainly possible. Bonavena got suckered into counters and was dropped by Ellis and Folley who were more technical fighters and didn't have 1 punch KO power as well as his sole late round last minute stoppage loss to Ali, but he recovered fairly quickly and went right back on the attack. In his prime, Williams only got stopped when facing really hard bangers like Liston and Foster (the Foster bouts were when he was way past his prime post gunshot) in all out brawl shootouts. So I would say Williams is more than capable of decking Bonavena since he hit way harder than the guys who dropped Bonavena but likely can't stop him. On the other hand, Bonavena may not have that raw destructive 1 punch power but he would pile it on hard all night and doesn't tire or loose power so anything is possible.

Common opponent Chuvalo managed to have a very, very close fight with Oscar that you could argue went the other way while past his prime Williams narrowly lost to Chuvalo. Williams stopped a green Terrel and drew with Machen, Oscar had a close war with a green Frazier and lost to Lyle who was similar in size to Williams.

Williams had a significant height and reach advantage, faster hands, threw cleaner punches, had better ring IQ. I'd say Williams wins a very close decision (possibly a split decision) over 12 maybe 7/10. Over 15 the fight would be extremely close and I could even see a draw. Bonavena I would give maybe a 40% chance of a win over 15 since his style and toughness would even the odds a bit in a longer bout.

This would be a highly entertaining scrap and may resemble David Tua vs Ike Ibeabuchi.