Max Baer would beat all of prime Liston's resume

All good mate.

Your post was, dare i say, superb up until the last sentence but we'll leave that slide as "opinion". I don't want to rain on a quality parade. You cop it for your bad posts so it's only fair you get some praise for this one. A really well thought out and balanced effort.

 

so what you are saying is if Liston threw a lot more hooks and put some snap into them Ali was toast.

 

Ali improved between the Cooper fights, Cooper said he was a lot more savvy about close work.

 

Ali was certainly more ready for what Cooper would bring second time around. If Ali was ready for what was coming there probably wasn’t anything anyone could do.

If he realised Cooper was so good we might have seen the second fight in place of the first fight.

Cooper was for real.

 

Just to further emphasize that nothing of Cleveland Williams career post 1964 should count..

here’s a sports illustrated article about injuries he suffered


“During negotiations for the fight, he brought out a photograph of Williams taken not long after he had been shot through the belly by a Texas policeman. It showed an emaciated man of 158 pounds, looking rather more like a starved alley cat than the Big Cat.

"Is it true," asked Chris Dundee, chief negotiator for the Clay forces, "that one of his legs is thinner than the other?"

It was true at the time, and Viscusi nodded.


. A state highway patrolman caught Williams speeding and arrested him. Other details are confused in a welter of contradictory declarations. Anyway, the officer ordered Williams into the patrol car and set out in the direction of Houston. Williams went along quite willingly because, as he said at the time, his manager would bail him out in Houston. No sooner had he said it, the Williams story runs, than the officer turned the car toward Tomball, a town where Negroes are not especially favored. Williams opened the door of the slowly moving police car and started out. "Man, I don't want to go to Tomball," he said. The patrolman seized him by the wrist and Williams dragged him out of the car (the story goes). The officer drew his .357 magnum pistol, favored by Texas policemen because it is just about the most feared and effective handgun there is. Williams says he seized the weapon to deflect its aim from his body. The gun went off as it was pointing toward his left hip and slightly downward. The bullet plowed crosswise through his intestines and lodged against the right hip, where it remains even now. Williams collapsed on the ground, and eventually lost consciousness. He awoke with the impression that someone was "kicking and stomping" him. He lost consciousness once more.

He awoke again, in Houston's Ben Taub General Hospital, and there had the good luck to have an old friend, Dr. Don C. Quast, a surgeon, watch over him. Then began a series of four operations lasting seven months that Dr. Quast now looks back on in wonder. The bullet had done massive damage. In such cases body tissue that looks healthy to the surgeon's eye often deteriorates unpredictably after the wound is closed. Then there must be a new operation. In addition to the colon damage, Williams suffered a wounded right kidney and this was removed on June 22, 1965. That was the last of the operations, for it was decided that he had been through quite enough and the bullet might as well remain inside him. It had broken his right hip joint and had caused partial paralysis of some hip muscles. "It is a miracle," Dr. Quast says now, "that he is not in braces."
One of the factors that may have been responsible for saving his life, the doctor said, is that Williams' abdominal wall "is two to three times thicker than that of a normal person" and this had the effect of slowing the bullet.

"He almost died," Dr. Quast said. "His kidneys stopped working, and the products they take care of are very toxic."

 

Not much of his career before 1964 counts for very much either though does it? Points win over Billy Daniels. A draw to Machen. A loss to Terrell. Three knockout defeats. And a few mediocre wins over second stringers on par with any number of fair to forgotten contenders.

There’s license to hype cleveland into something he wasn’t based on stopping a yet to make the grade Terrell..but since he couldn’t do it a second time...it depends on rather a lot of imagination and heresy to do so.

 

It's funny you're downplaying Williams' results against Daniels, Machen, and Terrell, while hyping up Doug Jones.... who did substantially worse against all three opponents.

 

No but he needed to throw far more like Cooper did who gave Ali serious problems before flooring him, Liston`s hooks were too slow.

 

He always fought better in rematches, however his ability to slip hooks never improved.

 

Williams-Terrell for vacant WBA title in 65 was scheduled. This shooting took this opportunity away from him

He knocked out Terrell whom didn’t get stopped against for another 10 years. Terrell also defeated zora Folley only months later and broke into top 5 in rankings within a year.

Williams beat the following ring magazine top 10

Roger Rischer
Billy Daniels
Alex Miteff

all three were rated when Williams beat them

Machen was top 3 ranked when Williams drew with him, a fight in which ref and ap scored for williams. Machen was very complimentary for Williams Post fight

Alonzo Johnson was very durable in and out of rankings Williams axed him with one left hook in round 1.

say what you want but Williams passed the eye test. 6’3 215lb thunderous left hook which he tripled in combination. Very fast hands, a good left jab. He also had good stamina and put up a fine work rate

 

typical of him

 

“Second time”

very close fight I had Williams winning so did the AP report. Terrell outboxed a lot of people but couldn’t outbox williams

a third fight for wba vacant title was scheduled for 1965

 

I try to ignore him most times, but sometimes he just irks me to the point where I'm unable to help myself.

 

It should also be mentioned Williams was injured going into the bout with Terrell and the fight was close to being postponed.

"How have you fared against boxers?"
"I've held my ground. I've beaten some good ones, the best were Curley Lee and Young Jack Johnson."
"You have to be kidding. You mean they were better than Ernie Terrell?"
"Terrell likes to make love. I don't consider him a fighter. He likes to grab you, hold you tight, and dance."
"You knocked him out in seven rounds in 1962 and then he beat you in '63. How did that happen?"
"I hurt my hands on Billy Daniels on March 9. A couple of weeks later I banged them up on Young Jack Johnson. I couldn't throw a punch without a stabbing pain going through my arm. But the promoter had set up this return match. We didn't want to let him down. It was a mistake. Even so, I thought I licked him, but it was in Philadelphia, his home town and he got a hometown decision."

Source:: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/99985978/the-los-angeles-times/

• Williams scheduled bout on April 13th with Ernie Terrell was placed in jeopardy due to Williams' injuring both hands during the bout. But the Terrell-Williams bout took place as planned. Source: https://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Cleveland_Williams_vs._Young_Jack_Johnson

Their was also talk about this immediately after the Johnson bout before he faced Terrell so it can't be dismissed as a post-loss excuse.

Heavyweight contender Cleveland Williams scored a costly technical knockout over Young Jack Johnson Tuesday night in the final round of a scheduled 10-rounder Williams, signed for a television bout against Ernie Terrell Apr. 13, injured both hands in the wild brawl with Johnson.

Source: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/99984956/des-moines-tribune/

His bout with Terrell was only 11 days after his bout with Johnson, giving him almost no amount of time to recover.

Even so I scored the bout for Williams who was dangerously close to stopping Terrell in the final round. Had the bout been even one round longer, Williams probably would've gotten a stoppage. Terrell certainly wouldn't have made 15 or even 12.

 

Poor Floyd Patterson says hello as does dozens of others. They all found them fast enough.

Perhaps it has something to do with Ali being the GOAT and probably the fastest reflexive heavyweight in history..........just a little. Foreman had a great hook as well but not tooooo many of those landed. They landed against countless others tho......hmmmmmm. Only Frazier was able to lace Ali consistently with hooks and truth be told Ali wasn't the dancer and romancer he was at the time he fought Sonny. Regardless Frazier landed them due to his constant elusive forward movement and immense left hook workrate. The most utlised left hook in heavyweight history it was. Name someone that hook didn't find again and again excepting Foreman who blew him out.

In a chokking twist of events the legendary chok himself actually explained the nuances of Ali - Liston and Ali - Cooper. Hammer actually met nail and met it HARD.