Please rate Cleveland Williams?

Williams appeared in Ring's rankings in October 1957. Not sure if he appeared earlier as I don't have ratings from every issue.

The Ring – (via Associated Press)
(as of October 31, 1957)

Champion:
Floyd Patterson

1. Eddie Machen
2. Zora Folley
3. Roy Harris
4. Willie Pastrano
5. Nino Valdes
6. Tommy Jackson
7. Pat McMurtry
8. Ingemar Johansson
9. Mike DeJohn
10. Cleveland Williams

 

And there it is.

 

Lee was still a 30lb lighter late replacement for Sonny Liston. If the fight was seen as fair on paper it must have been because neither Lee nor Williams had beat any name guys who were live going into their fights with them.

I read somewhere that blonde Lee was related to Dog the bounty hunter.

I would still like to have seen that fight. I think it was one of Williams better finishes on record.

 

Wow, I never knew this! Good work.

I wonder what particular win put Williams in there that month?

 

I don't know. Nothing in particular sticks out. The Holman fight on October 15th got a nice write-up from the Associated Press. Perhaps Williams & his management got Nat Fleischer's attention as an up and coming heavyweight at this point.

 

Yes that makes sense because on the strength of one good write Up perhaps that’s how Williams would have been able to get booked as an opponent in The UK with D!ck Richardson. I often wondered how they would have been able to sell that otherwise. getting a fight in Europe meant you were a big deal and until then his record was mostly manufactured with a couple of mishaps.

 

"blonde Lee"

I saw the Williams-Lee fight back then. It has been close to sixty years, and my memory might well betray me, but I think Lee was African-American,

if your implication by calling him blonde is that he was white.

By the way, I remember it as a close, exciting bout with Lee coming close to winning before Williams caught him with a big left hook which put Lee completely out in the last round.

 

Williams breaking into the ratings is a bit off the main point which was originally raised. Here is a quote from the article--

"By 1959, he was the logical challenger for Floyd Patterson's heavyweight crown. Patterson, however, had a weak chin, and his trainer and manager Cus D'Amato did his best to keep Patterson away from big punchers. Patterson fought the Swede Ingo Johansson instead."

This is nonsensical. Johansson was the #1 contender with a one round KO of Eddie Machen under his belt. Williams was a fringe top ten guy, not the "logical" challenger.

Personally, I have no problem with the rating of Williams in the lower regions of the top ten. He hadn't done that much, but had overpowered a couple of semi or faded names and had an impressive statistical record. He was very young when he lost to Jones, and Satterfield was a fierce puncher who KO'd a lot of name fighters. Williams was undefeated since coming out of the army. He was a guy on the way up.

 

Alas no photo.
http://www.nytimes.com/1959/10/15/a...t-lee-in-tenth-at-houston-uppercut-halts.html

 

I assumed he was white because I remember hearing that the guy from the TV show “Dog The bounty Hunter” (Duane Lee Chapman) was supposedly related to the boxer curley Lee chapman. He was a blonde biker type with a TV show out in Hawaii.

 

Curley Lee was a black fighter.

 

That’s good. Hope some film turns up. Merry Xmas.

 

Patterson was overall a much more of a superior fighter than williams, much more of a fan of patterson, but styles make fights, Patterson's pressure fighting style almost requires he gets hit and although it has been exagerated floyd had a glass chin, glass chins don't fair well against dynamite punchers like williams. Merry Christmas btw

 

I'd rate him roughly around Ron Lyle and Jimmy Ellis, in terms of heavyweights

 

That’s a bit higher than I would rate him. I think he should rest at about the same place as Duane Bobbick. A good puncher who lost the big ones.