Cleveland Williams vs Joe Louis

I think that Williams problem here, is that he is not good enough to beat Louis, but he is dangerous enough to get Luis's people worried.

The Bomber is probably going to be told to make it an early night.

 

What about his uppercut followed by left hook which was his best combo?

 

What if he comes out and jumps on Louis like he did on Liston?

 

Then good luck with that.

 

Agreed. I watched both fights this morning, Liston is not stylistically too dissimilar to Louis, but clearly lacks his handspeed, accuracy, & combination efficiency. He did have a heavier (though not necessarily better) jab & longer reach, but overall much of what even the prime Liston was doing, Louis could do better.

 

Louis by destruction

 

And yet can speak 37 languages.

Not relevant to any current discussion but I was flicking through the thread and this jumped out at me. We really do get them on here at times, don't we?

 

Williams was empathetically the better fighter. Baer was likely the more powerful fighter but he left himself completely open (you’d think head movement was banned the way he fought), didn’t possess an inkling of a jab, fell halfway to the floor when attempting sn uppercut, etc. Williams was no ATG, but he was far better skilled and had much better head movement.

That being said, I’d also favor Louis to beat Williams.

 

Lets look at Williams record against ranked opposition, excluding his loses.

Eddie Machen D
Billy Daniels W

That's it.

For all his inconsistencies, and technical faux pas, I think that we must conclude Baer to the the superior fighter.

 

He beat Daniels who was ranked both times, and stopped the #7 Miteff.

I also think he deserved the decsion against Terrell in the rematch in which he had injured hands.

Their's two reasons he didn't have more ranked fighters on his record.

1. It's on record, Williams manager had difficulty securing fights with name opponents. Off the top of my head, Hurricane Jackson, and Doug Jones, both flat out declined to fight Williams.

2. He was shot at his peak, while awaiting the title shot, that alluded him his entire career against Terrell, in a very winnable fight for him. If he won (which he would've in my opinion), he very likely has a successful defense against Chuvalo, and some others before losing to Ali in the trilogy.

Also, Baer didn't share an era with a peak Liston, and Ali, two H2H monsters. I don't see him doing much better if at all, than Williams did. For instance, Machen would run circles around Baer.

 

Louis inside 2 or 3 rounds.

 

Max may have beaten Floyd Patterson and became champion. I mean, Patterson was way more skilled, but I think peak Max >>>> Ingemar Johannson. Max Baer also had the stuff to take out Machen, assuming he catches him like Ingo did.

 

LOL. Here we go again. Williams peak was apparently 15 years into his career and when he was 31 years old and had over 70 fights to his name. LOL. The only reason you want to say he was in his peak is because he got arbitrarily moved up in the rankings for staying unbeaten fighting nobodies and squeeking out a win over Billy Daniels who had won just one of his previous six bouts. Its damning him with feint praise to say this was his peak. If it was it says just how weak he was.

And for the record Joe Louis would the absolute **** out of Williams and so would Max Baer.

 

Wrong. It's true he turned pro 15 years prior, but he only fought 11 of those years Mr. Expert.

Williams had zero amateur career to speak of, so 70 pro fights isn't all that many in his case.

1. Daniels had just upset the number one contender Doug Jones as a last minute substitute.

2. If you call a score of 100-89, and two scores of 100-88, "squeeking" out a win then I don't know what to tell you. Further proof, you have no idea what the hell you're watching.

3. I love how you're now criticizing the WBA ratings after just preaching how they were sooooo much better than the Ring ratings. You take issue with Williams rating, but have zero issue with Middleton losing to Quarry, staying inactive for 7 moths, and magically jumping up four spots to #4. You're a clown.

 

Cleveland Williams is one of those fighters, where the chatter of the gym rats, suggests him to be much better than his record indicates.

Perhaps he was.

I am entirely open to the idea.

We are still left with the fact that there is nothing in his resume, to suggest that he would be likely to beat Louis, or even Baer for that matter.