Cleveland Williams in the 1930s

Liston conceded Williams nearly knocked him and was the hardest puncher he ever faced. "I went out to feel him out in the first round and he almost knocked me out. I thought he had cut my throat" Source: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/54153015/daily-news-post/

Fair point, but Firpo also went down 7 times at least, in the span of a minute and a half. Dempsey also wasn't nearly as big a puncher as Liston was and was also not prime.

If you concede, at least some of his early bouts were fixed, why can't you entertain some of his later ones were as well? Especially, considering a lot of his opponents have said such things. I will address the rest when I wake up.

 

I still can't believe he got three likes off this laughable analogy. Still I think the worst was him actually comparing Williams to... Howard Smith.

 

I think I'd go with what I can see instead of exaggarated quotes.

Dempsey was prime in Firpo fight and he was a tremendous puncher. I don't think any of these changes my point though. Williams slugged with Liston and got stopped quickly.

Because I need strong evidence to suggest a fix. You're innocent unless you're proven guilty - you know?

 

I am not sure you can hold that against Retzlaff. Certainly not in comparison to someone like Cleveland Williams.

Wasn’t Bob Satterfield going through a similar period around the time he flattened Williams?

That year Bob was losing more fights than he was winning. He lost 2 of his last 3.

 

I'm not going to waste everyone's time explaining how Bob Satterfield was a far more dangerous opponent than Isidoro Gastanaga or King Levinsky - anyone with a little knowledge already knows that, and in any case it's irrelevant. Williams was a 20 year old prospect when he fought Satterfield, and he came in as a substitute with hardly any time to prepare.

But of course you've no choice but to keep harping on this one fight. It's the only time in a 20 year career Williams was ever counted out, and he was never stopped or floored in his prime by anyone but Liston.

 

king Levinsky was pretty good. He beat Jack Sharkey one time. Was on the cover of a ring magazine in 1934. He wasn’t a nobody.

Isidoro Gastanga was always dangerous early in a fight. He kayoed Steve Dudas in one round too. And Dudas was good enough to beat Bob Pastor Red Birman and Nathan Mann. It’s not like Gastanga wasn’t any good.

Remember we are only comparing Retzlaff to Williams here.

It’s been done to death, 33-1 Williams was coming off a revenge win over Sly Jones. His best win to date and was ready for the step up. He had height weight and reach advantage over Satterfield.

Williams had a padded record. By the time he retired two thirds of williams 90 fights were against fall guys. And one of them beat him. Sly Jones. Of the people you heard of that Williams fought, actual fighters with known form, those of fringe to world level reputations, his record is only 15-11-1 against actual fighters. A good 60 fights he had were made of people called baby Booze, Candy Daniels and graveyard Walters. 60 of them!

he was floored by Sly Jones at the 28-0 stage of his career in his first new York fight. Sly had but 10 fights to his name and was matched to lose.

This is why comparisons with Retzlaff are not outlandish at all.

 

Yes, Williams was floored by the 213 lb Jones back in 1953 when he was 20.

And you'll keep on claiming he was in his prime at that age because it's the only way you can sustain an argument that he was no better than Charley Retzlaff.

 

7-3 Jones was hand picked to make 28-0 Williams look good on the Marciano v Lastarza bill.

There is no other way to look at it.

The idea was clearly that Williams might start to develop into a future challenger for Marciano. So Williams own team obviously thought Williams was ready at 20!

Instead the bout was cut from 6 to 4 rounds presumably because Jones started knocking williams down. Thankfully, for Williams, he would lose on points. Rather than getting knocked out. But he was hardly thrown into the deep end.

No I never claimed Williams was in his prime. He was clearly a decent talent, the kind of talent who needed a Frank Bruno type nursing along with the right kind of step ups along the way. Once he has got past trial horses like Keene Simmons and Omilio Agramante and the one guy who beat him in a revenge rematch..Williams, when he took the Satterfield fight, was probably where Razor Ruddock was, who had earlier lost to Dave jaco in a similar way as Williams had to Jones, when he got his first name guy to beat. And expected to win.

No it isn’t the only way. Retzlaff was as similarly good in his own right. It is no way a smear to Williams to compare him to another decent talent who didn’t quite make it.

Williams was good. About as good as Retzlaff. Who was also good.

 

That's exactly what you claimed. I pointed out that Williams was never floored in his prime by anyone but Liston. Your reply was to bring up his knockdown against Jones.

A couple of other points.

This is just something you've made up. No one thought Williams was anywhere close to being ready for a title shot, any more than they did when he stopped Joe McFadden on the undercard of Marciano-Walcott the previous year.

Again, this is pure invention. Williams was floored in the first two rounds. The bout wasn't cut from 6 to 4 because he "started getting knocked down", but because the promoters wanted to get the main event underway to meet their TV commitments.

 

Williams was matched to win then too. 17-0 prospect against a 6-3-1 guy just beaten by Roland Lastarza in his last fight. Williams beat McFadden one round earlier than Roland had.

For his coming out party 28-0 Williams, who was already improving on wins recorded by Roland Lastarza, was knocked down and beaten by a hand picked 10 fight guy on an important Marciano Show.

 

I was going to argue with this. Then I realised that in trying to argue that Williams was no better than Charley Retzlaff you've accidentally started arguing that at the age of 19 he was already better than Roland LaStarza. It feels like my work is done.

 

He knows this. He's just being dishonest, because he's been repeatedly told this and accepted it. His theory that Williams matched to win against Jones and was cut short because he'd been getting knocked down has more holes than swift cheese.

1. If Williams was truly matched to win, why would they cut the bout short when he was making a comeback and chasing Jones all over the ring?

2. If the bout was stopped because he'd been getting knocked down, why wasn't it a stoppage? It went down as a points loss.

3. This loss means absolutely nothing. If bouts were cut short after only a couple rounds, Frazier would've had a loss to Mike Bruce, Ali would've had a loss against Sonny Banks, and Henry Cooper, and Marciano would've had multiple losses, against Walcott, Charles, Lowry, among others. I bet Chok doesn't want to talk about that?

 

This was not an exaggerated quote. Liston wasn't like Foreman, the type of guy to give out compliments. In fact, in the same article where he said he thought Williams was going to knock him out, he made excuses for his Marshall loss, and insisted he got caught laughing and got his jaw broken.

Dempsey was not prime against Firpo, he'd had one bout in over 2 years, and was rusty.

Yes, but he also ate some bombs before going down, and went toe to toe with him, as opposed to running like Machen, or else he could've lasted longer. Patterson for example, didn't even go toe to toe with him, like Williams did, and was knocked out twice within a round.

Fair enough, but their are to many question marks about the bout, along with Carnera's reputation, for me to put much stock in that win.

 

I don't think he was hard at all to stop. I don't think his chin was better than Patterson's tbh.

Fair point regarding Besmanoff. I also wouldn't say Westphal was anywhere near world level, His best win was against Frankie Daniels iirc.

Perhaps Baer was, but I doubt they'd fair any better against Liston than Williams did.

He was very green, and came in as a last second notice against a very dangerous and more experienced puncher. Even so, he was on his way to winning the bout, until he foolishly and prematurely went in for the kill after hurting Satterfield.

Are you serious? None of Williams' "fans" bring up his bout with Sylvester Jones. Only person who does is Choklab who brings it up in every other post and writes novels about that bout like he's doing below.

Yes he did, but not on the caliber of Williams.

Maybe, but that's because Liston has a much better chin than Louis and took shots that tbh would've likely floored Louis.

Fair point. I'm not saying Baer has no chance against Williams though. I just don't think he's a clear cut favorite against Williams as you seem to. As a matter of fact, I think he's the underdog.

 

I think we simply have to agree to disagree on that matter. I won't deny, Williams showed a lot of courage in Liston fights but I wouldn't give him much credit for anything else. In the end, he got stopped quickly twice and showed no improvement in the second fight.