How well would Razor Ruddock and Carl ''the truth'' Williams do in today's heavyweight division?

Both would do fairly well.

Ruddock had strength and punching power, and with lack of skilled HWs in the current HW scene he'd definitely be top-5 HW today. Most likely he'd be a beltholder, but not for a long time.

Carl Williams had better boxing skills than Ruddock and better than most (if not all) active HWs. He had great jab, nice footwork, he could punch and move, had good power and size. Unfortunately, he had weak chin that often betrayed him. I think Williams would have had little trouble while schooling Dillian Whyte, Dominik Breaseale or Bermane Stiverne. AJ would KO him, he'd be competitive vs Povetkin, Ortiz and Wilder, but I see him getting caught and stopped as the most likely scenario in these fights. I think Carl Williams would've been top-5 HW today.

 

Ruddock would be right in the mix. He would be a very dangerous proposition for Joshua, and I'd fancy him to come out on the right end of a shootout with Wilder. He's better than Ortiz and Parker; I'm not sure about Povetkin though if it is the same Povetkin from 2014-15.

Williams I'm not convinced about. Whatever you want to say about today's heavyweights, there are a lot of big guys throwing serious leather, and Williams' chin was always a weakness. As Weaver showed, Williams can have all the advantages and then just get caught with the equaliser. I think Williams would fare better in the first decade of the 2000s where outside of the Klitschkos there were plenty of winnable title fights against lesser punchers.

 

The truth was an excellent boxer with a superb jab and movement and decent power white and Parker would be taken apart from the outside and stopped I think wilder and Joshua would be made to look very ordinary but possibly their power would get them out of trouble .Ruddock became a very dangerous fighter with his smash punch .White and Parker get KOed early Joshua and wilder whoever lands a big shot first wins in a wild shoot out.

 

Extremely well. Both would have a very good chance to beat anyone but Joshua, and possibly him as well. I think Williams was a good enough boxer to make Wilder look pretty clumsy and foolish -unless of course Wilder caught him, which there's a good chance he wouldn't.

I suspect Ruddock likely hits harder than Joshua but would probably get repeatedly beaten to the punch, outboxed and lose a fairly wide UD or late rounds KO.

 

This is about how I see it, except I think that Ortiz would do fine against Ruddock and probably stop him.

I go back and forth on Williams. In theory, he had the skill set and talent to pick apart most of today's top fighters from the outside, by working off his jab, but it seemed like big punchers usually caught him sooner or later (usually sooner). I like Williams a lot but I think he would have been much better off in the first half of the twentieth century, when the upper ranks of the division were filled with much smaller men (the 40s and 50s would have been perfect for him).

 

Who on God's Green Earth did Wiliams beat when it mattered the most that give people the idea that he'd succeed in other eras?

 

Larry Holmes

 

Smoking Bert! .Took him apart .very impressive.

 

He beat Cooper, Ferguson and Tillis when all of them were better than just tough jorneymen (it would be later) , and did it easily. Also schooled Berbick and arguably beat Holmes (which could've been scored either way)

 

So nobody then... lol

 

Williams had a super jab but his power wasn't that awesome and his chin was only average.
Ruddock had excellent power ,a good chin,and skill but he fell in love with his power and wouldn't listen to his trainers.

 

First of all Williams was better than Ruddock.

I wholeheartedly feel Williams would clean out the house. A fighter like that just has not been in the division so long now that nobody could deal with him now. Not Joshua nobody. What could they do? Williams pumping out that jab and schooling them... power and size is one thing but that guy was as tall, his work rate and skill set was another level.

Heavyweight boxing has become a power event. A size event. Long arms and weight to lie all over the other guy is everything now. Joshua has the power but once he slows up he’s just like the rest. The boxing foundation is not there.

Wilder still needs to learn to fight. It is probably too late already. He’s shooting at a stationary target. And that’s all he will ever have to do. he can’t catch up overnight and expect to deal with a boxer. It’s not his fault.

Williams was almost a heavyweight Tommy Hearns. The guys that beat him would be cruiserweights now. Weaver, Tyson etc. It was speed that got him. But Superheavyweights? Those guys were around then. And they were zero threat in the 1980s because tall 220 guys had everything needed to make them irrelevant.

James Broad, Leroy Jones, mike White. Those guys would have been the heavyweight champions then had the 24 hour weigh in meant all the 220 guys were stuck at cruiserweight like they are now.

What we have now is the emperors new clothes. We have the Leroy Jones division and a few body builders and everyone thinks it is progress.

 

Williams never had the power to suggest he was a heavyweight Hearns, and his chin was vulnerable.
Williams wasn't ,"as tall," he was 3 inches shorter than Joshua , 4 inches shorter than Wilder.

 

I guess. But are we supposed to assume that the judges in Carl Williams' fantasy fights would be as bad as the judges in the Holmes fight?