Peak Cleveland Williams v Champ Jersey Joe Walcott

If he's so good why did he lose 30% of the times he stepped into the ring?

He's a significantly flawed fighter, in my opinion, especially during his championship years when he was at an age and odometer reading where his legs started to betray him.

 

That is an extremely skewed reading of his career. To be honest, Charles looks desperate and sloppy in the Marciano bouts, hardly like the great he truly was. Just a desperate aged fighter with too many tough fights under his belt swinging wildly for big paychecks.

 

He looked like Sht. I hate to say it but it's true. He was a .500 fighter as the rest of his career proved.

Willaims KO6.

 

He was 10 pounds over the lightheavy limit against Marciano not 25. Let's not play fast and loose with the numbers. And those pounds didn't make the difference. The 96 fights under his belt, a significant proportion against the Black Murderers Row, is what made the difference.

I've usually held my tongue out of respect to Ezz but he looked horrible against Marciano. That was not the Top 5 ATG P4P guy that we know as Ezz.

 

Superfluous footwork that achieved no advantage. Fell in too much with head on centerline, squared up on exchanges, didn't turn ahead of his opponents but followed them. Some of this was the result of his real main weakness as he entered his late 30's...

His real flaws in the early 50's were not technical but physical. His pegs were gone. He quickly went to post holing, stiff-legged, lost balance, slow on the pivot, slow to get his exterior chain into punches... Just an old azz fighter.