Floyd Patterson V Cleveland Williams?

Interesting that they never fought now that I think of it. Seems like there would have been ample opportunity.

Wonder if Cus figured Williams might be best avoided due to his power.

 

I fully concede that Corrie Sanders was a better fighter than Nate Tubbs if we want to compare resumes.

But Nate iced him neatly in two.

 

"Williams faced a prime Machen" "Machen wasn't even close to his best against Patterson. He was never the same upon his return from the mental institution"

This is just your spin. Machen had five fights between his draw against Williams and his loss to Patterson and scored five knockout victories. What is the evidence he had lost it? I lived through the era and I remember the take in the boxing magazines was that Machen never looked better and that the "new Eddie" was poised for a big move. He was the #2 rated NBA contender in July, 1962 when he faced Williams. He was the #2 rated contender in July, 1964 when he faced Patterson. The #1 contender in 1964 was Doug Jones whom Machen had soundly defeated back in 1961.

The bottom line is there is no substantial evidence Machen had gone back when he faced Patterson as there is no evidence he was ever better than Patterson. Machen managed to do better against Liston than either Patterson or Williams did, but he failed to defeat either one head to head.

Machen was consistent. He beat the second tier guys. He failed again and again against the top men. Johansson. Folley twice. Liston. Johnson. Williams. Patterson. Terrell. His big wins were in the fifties over the usual crop of fading contenders, Valdes, Baker, Jackson, and Maxim, plus Jones making his heavyweight debut in 1961. In fairness, he was impressive against Valdes, then on a losing streak. The rest was ho-hum.

"Williams was stopped only by Liston in his prime"

This would mean something if he had survived the big punchers in the division. But he never faced Patterson, Johansson, Moore, Valdes, DeJohn, etc. The big hitters he survived boil down to Holman, who hadn't stopped anyone in his previous 7 fights, and Machen. This is again arguing from a lack of evidence.

The problem with comparing Williams to Patterson is it is always drawing conclusions about Williams with little or no evidence to back it up.

 

The same outcome would have happened; Patterson would have won simply because he was a better and more complete fighter, even though it would have been a perilous fight for him.

 

Drinking Pat?

 

Williams somehow missed most of the best heavyweights despite fighting for 20 years. I wonder if his managers figured it might be best to avoid the talent due to his limitations.

 

Nah, I don’t drink.

Making a general point in agreement with something someone expressed: Fighter A being better than Fighter B doesn’t mean A beats B H2H.

 

I think you’ll find that “most” fighters who fight for 20 years don’t fight the majority of top guys in that span. Those like Ali were more the exception than the rule. I think Williams fought his share of top opposition.

But Williams’ career covers a decent span where Floyd is around and Cleveland is enough of a top guy that you’d figure they might cross paths.

We know Cus steered Floyd clear of Sonny Liston. That’s absolute fact, to the point that Patterson had to leave D’Amato because ducking Sonny didn’t sit well with him. I’m opining that maybe Cus also was happy to avoid the Big Cat.

Shame they never fought.

 

Funny how he “avoided ” most of the top heavyweights — yet still found time to fight Liston twice, even after getting flattened the first time.

 

Except that Patterson left D’Amato, fought Liston twice, and after that Williams attained his highest rating. So really the idea that Cus avoided Williams doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.

Patterson also fought Johansson 3 times, Liston twice, Quarry twice, Archie Moore, and George Chuvalo, all more proven punchers than Williams. When Patterson first fought Ali Ali had stopped all but one of his previous dozen opponents, several of which were top ten rated.

How anyone can compare Pattersons record to Williams’ and draw the conclusion that Patterson and not Williams was protected is going to need scientific study to make sense of.

 

When you see him getting stopped early by the two best punchers he fought it makes a lot of sense why his record is so light on talent.

 

That Patterson dropped Cus and fought Liston doesn’t discount the possibility that D’Amato could have steered Floyd away from Williams before they parted.

I doubt Floyd was anxious to go fight another puncher immediately after Sonny swatted him twice in a total of about four minutes when he went against D’Amato’s advice.

 

Williams wasnt much of a factor in the division prior to Patterson fighting Liston. He had barely cracked the top ten. By the time he worked his way anywhere near the middle of the top ten Patterson had agreed to meet Liston who blew Williams out of the water twice. Had Patterson decided to fight Williams instead of Liston he likely would have extended his reign and we’d all be talking about how he ducked Liston. Instead, a guy who has an outsized presence on this forum despite having no high level wins is being made to be a boogey man that he wasnt.

Williams retired 50 years ago. His record is devoid of quality wins and there is no footage of him winning a fight against anyone worth remembering. His reputation among some folks today is curious.

 

Cleveland was 46-2-1 before his first loss to Sonny Liston and had won 12 in a row. Floyd could have fought Williams instead of Brian London, who was coming off a loss and 2-2 in his last four. Patterson-London came a month before Liston-Williams I and could have been made — better to let Sonny and Cleveland duke it out and fight the winner?

It’s disingenuous to deconstruct Williams as unworthy when Floyd had defenses against an amateur with zero pro fights and later one against Tom McNeeley. At the very least, no honest argument can be made imo that Williams was less qualified than London, McNeeley and Rademacher.

We know D’Amato kept Floyd away from Sonny. I assume you do not dispute that. To me, it’s very possible he also found it convenient to sidestep a noted puncher like Williams, given Cus surely knew his charge was a bit chinny, to say the least.

To argue that there’s nowhere in Floyd’s busy schedule where he could have fit in a fight with Williams somewhere along the way is more than a stretch. It absolutely could have happened, and no one would say ‘what an odd choice to fight such an undeserving guy’ in a louder voice than they could have said the same about the trio i mentioned above.

I’m not saying Williams had an undisputed right to fight for the world title (or face Floyd during times when he wasn’t champ). I’m saying it would have been good to see him do so and a far sight more interesting (and surely more entertaining) than some of the chumps Patterson did fight.

 

Yes, but why did men like Valdes and DeJohn who got in the ring with Liston and other big punchers somehow never get into the ring with Williams?

I don't know. I have posted before that Williams is to me an enigma. A big, exciting heavyweight puncher who spends his career fighting in backwater venues for the most part and is rarely on TV when they were two boxing shows a week on national TV.

Your spin is he was feared. Others can make the at least equally valid claim that he was protected. He had a good manager and he had big money behind him (Bud Adams) and yet for some reason few big fights were made, except with Satterfield and Liston, and Williams failed badly against both.