A pretty slim resume. I think that Billy Daniels was ranked when he beat him. He held Machen to a draw. He beat Terrell before he broke out, and lost a split decision to him when he was ranked. Make what you will of that, he is possibly better than his record suggests.
Williams has some decent names on his record, but as far as ranked-at-the-time-of-the-fight guys he beat, there's only Alex Miteff and once-beaten Billy Daniels, at least in my research.
Richardson wasn’t ranked? The AP also said Rischer was ranked 9th but I believe they didn’t have the most up to date rankings.
Again an opponent can only fight what is put in front of them, promoters do the promoting, fighters do the fighting, big difference. Not everybody is Muhammad Ali and call out their future opponents, some fighter just like to fight. Williams is from another era. Try not to get upset, but it is the truth, there was only one Gorgeous George and Muhammad Ali.
I’ll repeat the question. How good were they and how many were ranked ? This thread is not designed to compare him to Ali or knock him for not chasing down other challengers
I think Richard was implying other contenders weren’t exactly getting in line to fight Williams though I understand that’s not exactly what you were asking.
I guess my reasoning is this, Williams appears in a lot of head to head fantasy matches on here. One of his more recent ones features him against Mike Tyson. I ask people to list who he’s beaten that’s noteworthy and at best I get 3 or 4 names, most of which were obscurities Who might have been ranked on the fringes.
Here's a list of fighters that Williams beat or drew with when they were rated in the top 10. Alex Miteff – May 16, 1961 was rated #7 by the Ring Magazine and #9 by the NBA Eddie Machen – 7/10/1962 was rated #2 by Ring Magazine (DRAW) Billy Daniels – 3/9/1963 was rated #8 by Ring Magazine Billy Daniels – 9/30/1964 was rated #10 by Ring Magazine
No he wasn't rated until the end of 1964 (Feb 1965 issue of Ring Magazine) after he beat Henry Cooper. Terrell wasn't rated in either fight But after he beat Williams in his 2nd fight he became rated at #10 and Williams went from #4 to #6.
"Rischer the ninth ranking heavy" Source: https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=VQdLAAAAIBAJ&sjid=CiMNAAAAIBAJ&pg=1214,5593759 I've heard they didn't have the most up to date rankings at hand though so make of that what you will.
Yes, I saw that as well. He was rated at #9 by the WBA in the beginning of September 1963 But wasn't rated in the beginning of October 1963, just before he fought Williams. He was also unrated by the RING, which I go by, until the end of 1964 (Feb 1965 issue of Ring Magazine) after he beat Henry Cooper.
I don't understand what could've made him go from #9 to losing his rating let alone dropping out of the top ten completely, seeing as he never fought in September.
