Cleveland Williams in the 1930s

Galento and Baer were world class fighters.

 

So if we don't have enough evidences, we should call it a fix? That's not how it works and you'd never use the same logic for any other fighter.

Maybe washed up is too strong of a word, but it shows how bad the state of LHW division was back then. It also can be used as an evidence that 1960s fighters weren't any better than 1940s, which is very close to debated 1930s.

 

What hard punching chiseled 6'2 210 pound athletic black heavyweight with an 80 inch reach willing to throw multiple left hooks in succession would you proffer up from the 30's?

I think he'd be a smite unusual surely? I'm not saying he'd clean house but surely he'd different from the norm.

 

None of this answers anything I asked. He beat nobody even remotely to similar. Louis may have been "galaxies ahead of Williams in every aspect possible" (Williams was more powerful) but going by that logic so was Baer.

 

Why is everyone putting words in my mouth today? I never said it was a fix. My exact words were " Regarding Carnera beating Loughran, I don't put much stock in it. Carnera was stepping on his toes all night, and their are suspicions of a fix "I had to knock him out to win, I had to agree to that".,

That's an entirely different debate, but their's no "maybe" about washed up being to strong of a word for a man who would go on to unify the titles, and give a young great fighter everything he could handle and then some before dropping his championship in a fight many (though not the majority in attendance at least) thought he'd won

 

We got JT1 in the Williams bandwagon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't believe it. Next bank account I clear, you're getting half !

 

I'm mostly honing in on one point tho. I can't for the life of me see how he doesn't bring something substantially different to the table even if one believes it won't be overly successful.

 

I agree. I'm not saying he beats Louis (most I think he'll potentially get is a KD) but to act like he's not a different proposition than anybody around is ignorant at best, and more likely disingenuity.

 

It's true and Baer's fight is the only reason why it shouldn't be obvious for us to pick Schmeling. That said, Baer took a lot of counter rights from Max and I'm afraid Williams wasn't durable enough for that.

 

Suspicions are there only because it's Carnera. You wouldn't use that card with other boxer.

Fair enough, I cancel my words about Johnson.

 

We don't have enough footage from that era to conclude who from fringe contenders used multiple left hooks and who didn't but we have quite a few black powerful punchers of Williams size at world level:

George Godfrey 6'1.5 240 lbs and 79.5 inch reach
Larry Gains 6'1.5 200 lbs and 79 inch reach
Alberto Santiago Lovell 6'3 200 lbs (no reach)

I'd say that Williams was certainly better than Lovell, but I don't see why we should call him better than Godfrey or Gains.

Then we also have a lot of non-black punchers of Williams size:

Arthur De Kuh 6'4 220 lbs and 79 inch reach
Hank Hankinson 6'4 215 lbs (no reach)
Charley Retzlaff 6'3 200 lbs and 78.5 inch reach
Art Lasky 6'4 195 lbs and 76 inch reach
Lou Nova 6'2 205 lbs and 75 inch reach

to name a few. As far as I know, none of them dominated the sport or even became a world champion.

 

Maybe, or maybe not. But Williams was also a much better boxer, and harder to hit than Baer so maybe he wouldn't have to.

 

Well yes, Carnera had a reputation for such things, and I don't know why you think I should just ignore that.

Even taking away Carnera, from the equation it's still very suspicious, when a fighter says he's told he needs a knock out to win, and everyone agrees he won the early rounds, but he's only given 5 rounds total across three judges. Not to mention, having his toes stepped on the entirety of the bout.

If Williams had the same performance against Carnera, he would've been a laughing stock on this forum, for his performance and failure to KO Loughran.

 

Maybe for their time, but if they fought today, they both had many flaws that would be exposed. Especially Galento.

 

I don't think Williams was really hard to hit to be honest. Baer ate a lot of punches, but most of them were not clean. He was an odd fighter.

I mean, a lot of boxers say a lot of things after fights. As I said, without strong evidences I would be hesitant to use fix argument only because Carnera fought in this fight. As far as I know, there is no strong evidence of Carnera fixing fights at world level.

No, he wouldn't. It would be by far his greatest achievement of his career. Knocking out Loughran was extremely hard thing to do and to be honest, I don't see Williams doing that at all.

Today is not the era Williams fought in.