Earnie Shavers talked briefly about his fight with Williams in a book called "Facing Ali". I'll offer a quote from Shavers from that book; "Ali had a sparring partner named Roy "Tiger" Williams. He said, 'If you beat Tiger Williams, I'll give you a shot.' I knew Tiger Williams. He was a tough, tough guy. So I made my mind up I would knock this guy out. We took the fight, I trained hard. The first eight rounds, I was ahead on points. He came back in the ninth and the beginning of the tenth, and damned near destroyed me. But I knew I had to win for the Ali fight. They gave me a standing eight count, asked me questions, asked my name, where I was fighting, who I was fighting? I said Las Vegas, Earnie Shavers, Roy Williams. So I knew then, I had to go on the chin and stop him. He came forward toward me and I stepped in and hit him on the chin and I hurt him. And that's when God gave me the strength, and I stopped him." [yt]WOHXHyEH5vw[/yt]
Both men were exhausted....Earnie always suffered from lack of stamina...Tiger was Big but not a real big puncher...still got to give Earnie credt for coming back, I would have stopped it if I was the ref, the way Earnie was reeling...i remember that fight
That's it tho===back then fighters were given a chance to continue & that's what bailed Earnie out. > Mancini/Kim, the Shavers-Williams bout is stopped with Earnie on the ropes. And a loss at that stage of his career would've been devastating because he was really not fighting high caliber opponents after that Quarry disaster. He would've stayed the course as a clubfighter and would've been too dangerous an opponent for top 10 guys for very little money. The win really helped that Shavers career a ton & pretty much left Williams to what he was--a real good sparring partner.
