Just watched him against Douglas on the Spinks Tyson under card . Big things were being talked about this guy possible title shots against Tyson that type of thing .he'd lost a decision to Spoon a few years before so why was he held in such regard ?? Any ideas ???
He started off looking promising as a young prospect. Didn’t see the spoon fight but heard that he fought him on close terms. Beat quick Tillis with only a few fights under his belt. Was a big guy for his time. He had potential but might have been over blown. If nothing else he at least got a role in Rocky 5 as the character “ Union Cane “
Mike Williams first came to prominence on the heavyweight scene as a young prospect when he apparently shone in sparring sessions with a prime or near prime Mike Tyson who was on his to becoming the undisputed champion at that time. With Tyson looking so dominant, everyone including all the boxing magazines writers and TV boxing figures were always looking to see where the future challengers to Tyson would be coming for and Williams who physically definitely looked the part was certainly someone that caught their eye.
Williams definitely looked the part and had a lot of swagger to him. He had a good amount of pop and decent technique but I felt he was somewhat let down by his chin.
Any clue as to why Williams pulled out like 10 minutes before the Morrison fight? Wasn't Williams picked to beat Douglas fairly easily?
Well, he did fight Sanders who is arguably even nastier than Morrison so ... This content is protected yeah it didnt go well
Pro boxing is a pretty small community. Everyone has worked with everyone else in some capacity. National amateur champions and amateur world champions tend to be national and world champs as pros. Boxers run into each other as kids and teens and then as adults. Trainers work with some guys and end up working in the corner opposite them at other points. And everyone spars with everyone else. Every era has a few guys who people talk about what beasts they are in sparring. (So-and-so knocked down this guy in sparring. So-and-so got sent home because he was too tough on the name fighter.) Mike Williams was one of those guys. He won a national amateur title so people knew him. He boxed for Josephine Abercrombie and the Houston Boxing Association, and Josephine was a big name in the sport in the 80s. He'd spar with the top names. Those names would talk about how tough or what a beast he was. Josephine was good at getting her fighters publicity, so the magazines would write about him. And some point, all the boxing "insiders" are saying "you've got to see this guy." And then boxers like that get a showcase and often they tend to fizzle. Mike fizzled. Long story short ... he was held in high regard because of sparring stories. Gym legend of sorts but not actually a fight night legend.
Lot of truth in that post about how things are and how things work. It is a rather small, insular community … even globally and certainly nationally. There are guys who develop reputations from sparring and some of those are well-earned, but there are also guys who are better ‘gym fighters’ than they show when they get in the ring. I had a guy who sparred with a lot of top guys (he was a southpaw so he’d get a lot of work when someone had a big fight or title fight against a lefty) and I saw him do amazing things. In the ring he was good but … never could get what we saw in the gym to translate on a consistent basis. I knew another guy, speaking on the ‘everybody knows everybody’ type thing, who was a good regional amateur. Maybe good enough to do something on the national level … but to get out of the regional tournaments he always ran into Roy Jones Jr (he was from Mississippi, Roy from upper Florida, and they’d meet in the regional Golden Gloves or USA Boxing tournaments) and of course he could never beat Roy. He lost to Roy like three years in a row. I remember him telling me he decided enough was enough so he moved up a division his last year in the amateurs … and gets to the Southern Golden Gloves and guess who else had moved up — Roy Jr, haha. Lost to him again and said ‘I may as well just turn pro.’ Became a decent journeyman but nothing special.
I saw an early fight of his, against some random opponent when Williams was starting to get hyped a lot, that appeared to be fixed. Early on, Williams got rocked. The opponent seemed shocked and didn't follow up on it too much. The round ended soon after. The next round, the opponent went down at the first reasonably serious punch landed by Williams. Seemed sketchy. I don't know the name of the opponent though.
