Definition of a Policeman

A "policeman" was a fighter who more or less stood in the way of a champion as a protective measure.

Sugar Ray Robinson had one in Artie Towne. Towne was in his stable. When a high risk, low return fighter's manager approached Robinson, Robinson would say "fight Towne first. You get by him, we'll sign contracts." Towne was a helluva fighter and most didn't get by him. It did wonders for Robinson who was freed up to fight more lucrative challengers; For Towne? Not so good. He never went far and never made much money.

 

Cleveland Williams was considered the policeman of the Sonny Liston camp. I remember reading several articles referring to him as such.

Red Bruce was the policeman of John Henry Lewis during his title reign. Both fought under racketeer Gus Greenlee, who was the first black manager of a world champion as well as owner of the great Pittsburgh Crawfords Negro League baseball team.

 

No no no. williams was always a well backed fighter who was nursed along but kept blowing his chances whenever he stepped up.

bob satterfeild was the only name on the big cats record before facing liston. his best actual wins by then were against unrated (31-13) frankie daniels or (27-16) john holman when both were on worrying losing streaks.

between the Liston and ali fights williams beat 18 fighters who could not win more than 2 of their last 4 fights, of those (6-4) mel turnbow knocked him down. Williams also beat george moore and ernie terrel who had better records but Moore was only 11 months into a comeback after a two year break from a 14 month career and terrel beat williams in the return.

 

To be fair, Liston did say as champion that he would "fight whoever beat Williams".

 

cant think why when patterson, johansson, machen and folley had much better credentials? maybe Liston was just looking outside his best four contenders before rematching floyd when he said this?

 

Liston thought verry highly of Williams head to head, and did not have a particularly high opinion of Johansen.

I also get the idea that he had an element of didain for top fighters who avoided dangerous challengers.

His atitude was "if you (insert fighter) want a shot at the title, then prove you deserve it like I did".

 

I wasn't necessarily giving my opinion here. Only stated how things were looked at by some at the time.

 

'policeman' was really more applicable to pro wrestling than boxing. a wrestling 'policeman' was a legit catch wrestler who would protect the business by taking fan challenges and keeping rival promoter shooters at bay. judo gene lebell was one of the last shooters I can remember, but thats probably way off.

 

...and you're correct in doing so. Even Williams once referred to himself as "Liston's Policeman".

 

Isn't it what they call "gatekeeper" ?
or is it meant as the championship level gatekeeper ?

 

:good

 

A gatekeeper doesn't block the path to any specific fighter like a policeman. It is a category of fighter who is considered a more serious stepping stone than say, a journeyman.

 

you mean policeman is more serious than a journeyman or (xor) a gatekeeper is more serious than a journeyman ?