Cleveland Williams in the 1930s

Williams had a much better defense than Baer. That's not up for debate. As George Crowcroft noted, Williams showed he had an underrated defense against Liston and made him miss quite a lot.

You should do some research then. Many of his fights were dubious at best. Carnera's manager published a record which had notations on his fixed fights which was reprinted in the book "Man Mountain"

He was also banned from fighting in California because his fight with Bombo Chevalier was a very obvious fix.
"Since his arrival in the US, backed by a group of prosperous but shady entrepreneurs, Carnera's career has been less glorious than fantastic. His first opponents—Big Boy Peterson, Elzear Rioux, Cowboy Owens—were known to be incompetent but their feeble opposition to Carnera suggested that they had been bribed to lose. Suspicion concerning the Monster's abilities became almost universal when another adversary, Bombo Chevalier, stated that one of his own seconds had threatened to kill him unless he lost to Carnera. Against the huge, lazy, amiable Negro George Godfrey (249 lb), he won on a foul. But only one of 33 US opponents has defeated Monster Carnera—fat, slovenly Jimmy Maloney, whom Sharkey beat five years ago. In a return fight, at Miami last March, Carnera managed to outpoint Maloney."

Steve Hamas, knocked him out in 2.

Fair point but even in that era, Their flaws would've been easily exposed, against the likes of Patterson, Folley, and especially Machen.

They would've been knocked out by Liston, most likely to Williams and Valdez, and possibly even Dejohn

 

Yeah, he missed him so much that he knocked him out twice within 10 minutes.

Carnera manager is a fraud, but I'd like to see the list anyway if anybody has the access to it.

1. He was stopped twice in 170 fights...

2. Steve Hamas was excellent fighter.

What makes these three better than contenders from the 1930s? Serious question.

Again, what makes DeJohn better than 1930s competition? Other than the day of birth?

Buddy Baer was very durable and had significant physical advantages over all of them. I find it unlikely that Valdes, DeJohn and Williams all would knock him out

 

Not a bad effort but it doesn't show Williams would bring nothing unusual, to me at least.

 

Fair enough, I don't find anything suggesting that Williams would be on another tier to black fighters like Godfrey or Gains.

 

I think Williams would have to have been as good as Joe Louis to do what Joe Louis did in the 1930s. And I definitely don’t think Williams would have beaten all of the guys Joe Louis beat in the 1930s.

The best guys Williams beat were Billy Daniels and a young Ernie Terrell. That’s about it. Two guys, when he fought them, who would not have stood out in the 1930s at all.

 

1. You should actually watch the bout. Williams makes him miss a fair amount of time.

2. It was not 10 minutes.

3. If Williams defense was so bad, and he was slugging it out with a peak Liston, and giving better than he got for a while wouldn't that mean, Williams' had to have an excellent chin?

It's in the aforementioned book. It's also common knowledge at least some of his bouts were fixed. If nothing was suspicious at the very least, he wouldn't have been banned from California as I mentioned previously.

Untrue. If you go by his official record, he was stopped three times. His unofficial record has 5 stoppages. He was also on the downside of his career at 34. Oh yeah, and also Carnera stomped on his feet for much of the bout.

Their were no 5'11" balding chubsters with a woeful defense, in their era getting anywhere near the top 10 for one. For all the took of Williams' bad defense. His defense was leagues above Baer, and especially Galento. Are you going to dispute this?

Baer was stopped as a young man, by obscure Gunnar Barlund, who he had half a foot and 40 pounds on! Oh yeah he also lost more than 1 out of 3 times he stepped in the ring, and had a 32.18% KO percentage. Williams was never stopped by an opponent half as bad, even post-shooting. If he was, we would've never heard the end of it here.

Buddy also never faced a puncher the caliber of Williams with the exception of Louis, and we all know how that went.

 

Terrell wouldn't have stood out in the 30s? What?

 

Do you really think I haven't watched these two fights?

He lost the first fight in the 3rd round at the time of 2:04, which means the fight lasted 7 minutes. The second fight ended after 4 minutes. My bad, 11 minutes of 2 fights combined

I simply think you massively overstate the success Williams had in these fights. As I said, he got knocked out in the 3rd and 2nd round. He landed some powerful shots on Liston, but he ultimately lost the slugging in miserable fashion both times.

I'll give you the analogy - Firpo slugged with Dempsey for two rounds with some success, but he didn't have a good defense nor a strong chin.

Some of his early bouts were fixed, but they weren't world level.

Cool, so he was stopped 3 times in 170 fights - what does it change? He was incredibly hard to stop and I wouldn't bet on Williams to do that.

Yeah, instead we had 50 years old Archie Moore inside top 10. We also had athletic monsters like Willi Besmanoff or 5'7 Albert Westphal fighting at the world level.

No, I won't dispute that. At the same time, they were far more durable than Williams.

Cleveland Williams lost against LHW by a knockout in the 3rd round. Or maybe should we focus on actual primes? Baer was stopped twice in 64 fights, why do you have to cherrypick one loss in 84 fights?

Williams was beaten by a no-name called Sylvester Jones and nobody talks about it... because nobody cares about Williams outside of a few of his fans.

1. I think you should check out Baer's resume, because he fought quite a few bangers.
2. We know how that went - Baer fared better vs Louis than Williams vs Liston actually.
3. Williams never faced a puncher the caliber of Baer with the exception of Liston and we all know how that went.

 

never a truer word was spoken.

 

I really don't understand this Williams fascination. He was really nothing special in historical terms...

 

Probably. Sharkey was pretty skillful, but terribly inconsistent.

 

I am dead serious saying this, if he didn't look like a bodybuilder no one would give a ****

He has a woeful resume for his hype, he fights sloppy, ugly style... But he could probably bench a lot.

 

I think Cleveland Williams would do well to beat Charlie Retzlaff if he fought in the 1930s. This is the kind of fighter Williams should be getting compared to. Retzlaff is every bit as proven as Cleveland Williams.

Retzlaff beat guys like Jimmy Braddock, Art Laskry, Al Ettore, stanly Poreda. He had a KO percentage of 72% from 74 fights. So he had some pop in his punches.

 

I wasn't so much talking him being another tier as him being somewhat unusual compared to the crowd.

 

Sure. I was forgetting the times Williams got flattened inside a round by an opponent who'd lost half his recent fights