How many quality opponents did Cleveland Williams beat ?

Fergy, It appears that some posters are simply hung up on resumes, they still do not understand that a fighter from the 1960's cannot fight someone from the 2000's for example. That is only up to our hypothetical mind when selecting a fantasy winner. They judge a fighter on who they have fought, as long as a fighter wins, that is all that should matter. Some make Gerry Cooney a God because he knocked out Ken Norton and Jimmy Young, but if I say that those fellows were old relics, which they were, and I ask why didn't Cooney fight the younger crowd like a Tim Witherspoon, or a Greg Page, I have to be subjected to read excuses. That is why I am getting bored on this specific site. I am starting to feel like Silence Is Golden, just let those posters just ramble on.

 

With the exception of Liston, a lot of fellow contenders didn't wanna be the fella in front of him!

 

There's a fair chance others did tho. I'm not sure who skipped ahead of him but as an example Chuvalo had a decent win end of September and guys like Mildenberger were also in the ring. That could have been what happened. It's only the WBA ratings tho.

 

Where have I seen that name before...

 

Williams had 27 fights against name fighters from a total of 94 fights spread over 21 years . And he went 15-11-1 against that lot. He had almost 70 filler fights that don’t really count. Very dubious names. I’m not even sure all of them were men. Candy mcdaniels. Baby booze. Graveyard Walters.

In the scheme of things I think that ratio stands up very well against exciting men like Charlie Retzlaff and Pat Comiskey who are far less celebrated with similar achievements.

on the subject of being avoided, for an avoided opponent, His people certainly kept Cleveland Williams extremely busy.

A lot of fighters proved to be willing to meet Williams in rematches.

Sly Jones, Billy Daniels, Ernie Terrell, Sonny Liston, Ray Banks, Roosevelt Holmes, ponce Deleon, Mac Foster, frankie Daniels were all prepared to fight Williams twice.

D!ck Richardson was prepared to meet Williams in a rematch but Cleveland left town on the night of the fight.

 

I don’t think people were afraid to fight him. He was really just a high risk low reward guy. Like most bangers who haven’t made it to the top. He was able to crush a lot of D/C fighters while not being skilled at the upper levels to compete. His best win being an up and coming Terrell who hadn’t figured it out yet.
I don’t get the obsession with him. To each their own.

 

To be fair, I think that Williams faced tougher competition overall than these two.

 

He just compared Williams to Howard Smith in the Shavers thread, and referred to him as the "Texan Lamar Clark" in the past. Good luck getting anywhere with him.

 

Well, you know that I don't have high opinion about Williams but he was better than that.

 

If you're a Liston fan you got to big this guy up, though he was about as relevant to the HW scene when he got knocked around by Liston as he was when he got knocked around by the smaller Satterfield. Without Big Cat, the best example we have Liston's power is rag dolling a guy 30 lbs lighter (Patterson) which in grand scheme isn't all that impressive.

A past prime...(his prime seems to be a brief period where he drew with a cagey punch drunk Machen) Big Cat was also a punching bag for Ali in a famous showcase fight, but that doesn't get brought up much anymore. What's important to people...Big Cat was Big (well...210 lbs and that's closer to being 250 than 190...right fellas?) and Liston beat him, therefore Liston wasn't just a size bully...

It's not hard I can clearly see why certain fans on this board are obsessed with him. Those muscles, that reach, that weight, that hair do...that frame and the theoretical weight he could carry(as subjective a concept that is).

 

It's a mystery. Rischer wasn't very active in 1963. After losing to Eddie Machen in May 1962 he didn't fight again until June 1963 when he won the CA title against Kirk Barrow (whom Williams would KO in August). Yet somehow, without fighting between May 62 and June 63, Rischer climbed back into the rankings of the NBA / WBA. Then, shortly after winning the CA title against Barrow, he's dropped. Furthermore, there wasn't really any other activity in the division, or emerging contenders, to push Rischer out. Go figure.

 

Maybe so, But they are not too far away are they?

Charley Retzlaff 61-8-3 (54) fought Joe Louis, Tom Heeney, Johnny Risko, Les Kennedy,?Stanley Poreda, Jim Braddock and Art laskey.

comiskey 74-12-2 (61) fought Max Baer, Lou Nova, Lee oma, Steve Dudas, omilio Agramante who were rated at some point.

 

But when you look at the fact that Patterson, after the 2 Liston fights, despite willing to fight anybody who would fight him (like Quarry, Machen, Ellis, Chuvalo, Cooper, Bonavena, Ali, unlike the first part of his career with d'amato), has never been brutally knocked out like this again........and he was past it in all of those fights with the possible exception of the Machen fight.

So i believe Liston crushing him in a quick and brutal fashion (and he did again in the rematch) was really impressive!

 

Liston doesn’t need Williams to prove his worth or power. Listons power is trumped by his opponents many of whom had vast experience with punchers. All testified to his devastating punching ability. I am not a Williams fan but I certainly can separate the two