Earnie Shavers vs Mike Weaver and Cleveland Williams

I believe Shavers would cold **** Weaver , and I think Cleveland would KO Earnie....Of course the exact opposite is also plausible.

 

Cleveland Williams did not have that monster win prior to being shot. He was reasonably experienced (35--1-1) when Satterfield crushed him in three, he drew with Machen and we've all seen his two and three round stoppages at Liston's hands.

Shavers one punched Jimmy Ellis in a completely unique way, his right to the body is what scored the first KD on Ken Norton, he came off the deck to stop Jeff Sims on the Berbick-Ali undercard (and Sims was being hyped as Liston 2.0), and he dropped Bugner in the opening round. (Granted, Joe was coming off a two year layoff, but he still had excellent wins in his future, and nobody ever wiped him out quite like Earnie. Bugner acknowledged that Shavers was his hardest punching opponent. Everybody who remembered getting hit by Earnie agreed on that.)

The Acorn had underrated durability and stamina. Over the 91 bouts of his career, he was decked only seven times. Stander (a monster chin who took everything to get the inexperienced Shavers to punch himself out in five, but Ron rated him tops in power), Jerry Quarry (who had one punch KO power in both hands, but needed a few dozen shots to finally drop the Acorn), the severely overlooked Bob Stallings (but Earnie rose from a ninth round KD to hear the final bell), Lyle (where he necessarily punched himself out at altitude, but dropped the Denverite first), the big and deadly Mercado (but Bernardo also had to get off the deck to do it), and Jeff Sims (who again, he actually got up against to stop), and at age 50 against Brian Yates, which nobody holds against Shavers.


Common opponents of Lyle and Foreman, like Leroy Caldwell, stated that Big George and Big Ron were about equal in physical strength and punching power. For Earnie to stand up to Lyle through five rounds before succumbing only to exhaustion is credible.

It took Mercado seven rounds to drop Shavers after Earnie wore himself down trying to finish off Bernardo in round three.

Larry Holmes one punched Evangelista, pounded Ocasio into the dirt with his jab, destroyed Weaver with a single right uppercut, and we won't count Zanon because everybody knows Lorenzo had no chin. But during this time frame, Earnie remained upright against the Assassin through 23 rounds. That shows an underrated chin. (Overlooked in Larry's surprise flooring from Snipes is the fact nobody else halted Renaldo until his career finale a dozen years later.)

All this means that I think Shavers could've withstood the Big Cat's firepower sufficiently to stop him like Liston did. Henry Clark said Earnie was a bigger puncher than Sonny, who Wepner said was a far harder puncher than Foreman.

Cleve had a great left hook, but long rights trump short hooks. I expect Earnie to take this one quickly.


Okay. Mike Weaver is a different story. At his best, he had a jab which decked LeDoux, a hook which took out John Tate with 45 seconds left to go in round 15, and he greatly impressed viewers with his ability to take a punch from Coetzee and quickly recover. Too much durability, too much stamina and too much late round power for Shavers here.

 

He was not "reasonably experienced when Satterfield crushed in three". His early fights were a substitute for the absence of an amateur career. He was half a decade away from a ranking. On top of that, he was a last second replacement.
"Cleveland Williams a 20 year-old heavyweight with the potential ability of a champion, faces the first major test of his three year career tonight when he meets Bob Satterfield of Chicago in the feature 10-round bout at Miami Beach auditorium. Satterfield, a far more experienced fighter is a 7-5 favorite."

"Williams took the Satterfield match on short notice replacing Charley Doc Williams after the latter pulled out of the match."
"His fighter is in perfect physical condition but has had very little sparring. Cleveland has done pretty of road work since beating Jones two weeks ago but did not do any sparring until Sunday."

"but Chris (promoter Dundee) was in a hole and I decided to take Satterfield. I'm as anxious to see this one as you are."

"So we took the gamble. I know Satterfield is a helluva puncher and he's got a big edge in experience."

Source: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=MkRCSU1TY1dfWFJSMWhVRUc4dTBWNWN5dzF2SXBB
Very odd you hold Williams loss to Satterfield against him, yet Williams isn't allowed his win over a far more experienced Terrell who would go on to become ranked less than a year later, and become the best heavyweight of the mid-60s with the exception of the GOAT.

Williams also wouldn't have got caught dead, losing to the likes of the 20-24 Bob Stallings.

 

Williams vs Shavers = Two big punchers both have been stopped early Shavers by Quarry, Williams by Satterfield, Liston x2. So whilst I wouldn't claim their chins are glass they also wern't granite either. So both fighters have enough vulnerabilities in their chins where anyone could be stopped. So really it could go either way it wouldn't last 4 rounds though someone is getting stopped early.

Weaver vs Shavers = Weaver could be a slow starter he was stopped in round 1 twice by Dokes, Bonecrusher. So there is a possibility Shavers swarms all over Weaver early and finishes him. If Weaver can get through the early storm I favour him to stop Shavers in the 2nd half of the fight but again it's another one of those fights that could go either way.

 

Well, the stoppage against Dokes was a total fluke that resulted from the backlash of the Duk Koo Kim fight, and the Bonecrusher stoppage was a major anomaly that came as a result of Weaver's durability taking a major nosedive after getting struck straight in the back of the head by Tony Anthony. Remember that he previously went many rounds against Mercado, Coetzee, Tate, and Tillis without getting rocked or knocked out- We have to keep in mind that these stoppages are not representitive of Weaver at his peak.