Cleveland Williams: The Baddest Cat to Never Win the Heavyweight Title

Born in Griffin, Georgia on June 6, 1933, Cleveland "Big Cat" Williams was blessed with a huge, powerful body, while being cursed with some truly awful luck. He grew up as a religious, God-fearing soul, and his frame, athletic gifts and determination should have won him the World Heavyweight Title, but it was never to be. A string of unfortunately circumstances always seemed to keep the most prized crown in sports just out of William's reach.

Williams grew up in Texas and turned pro in 1951, fighting club bouts and smokers in what was called the Southern Hicktown League. For the next four years, this tall and skinny boy in his late teens and early twenties racked up a 32-2 record, with most of those wins coming inside the distance. In 1953, Williams dropped a peculiar points loss to Sylvester Jones, and the next year was over-matched and knocked out by light heavyweight contender Bob Satterfield. Cleveland Williams was then drafted into the Army, and spent the next two years on the sidelines.

When Cleveland Williams emerged from the Army, he was a 6'3", 210 lbs. 23 year old heavyweight with an 80" reach, and all of this in an era when the norm was still 6-foot, 200 lbs. men. He knew how to leverage that tall, lanky frame into enormous hitting power. Williams was a knockout artist who carried TNT in both fists.

Dueling with Sonny Liston
Once out of the Army, "Big Cat" Williams tore a hole through the heavyweight journeymen of the day, winning 12 fights in 2 1/2 years, and eight of them by knockout. By 1959, he was the logical challenger to 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, and was knocked out by the big Swede's hard right hand. If Patterson had fought the "Big Cat" instead, the result would have certainly been an even more decisive defeat.

Frozen out of a title challenge, Williams instead fought another fearsome puncher, Sonny Liston, in April 1959. Williams was busier in the first round, firing the 1-2 or 1-2-hook, and busting Liston's nose in the process. Liston started to let go in the 2nd Round, and the result was one of the heavyweight division's classic shoot-outs. Williams was rocked, and in the 3rd Liston knocked him out.

Both men were still frozen out of the heavyweight title picture, so they fought again in 1960. This time Liston knocked Williams out in two rounds. This pair of battles prove the classic axiom "in a battle between two punchers, the guy who catches the best wins." Williams probably hit harder, and Liston always maintained Williams was the hardest puncher he ever faced. Yet Liston could absorb the blows of the "Big Cat," and had the harder jab to boot.

1960s Contender
Unable to beat Liston and equally unable to get Patterson in the ring with him, Cleveland Williams turned to the division's other contenders to make money. In April 1962, he stopped future WBA Heavyweight Champion Ernie Terrel in seven rounds. In July of the same year, he dueled with skilled boxer Eddie Machen to a Draw. By now, Liston had destroyed Patterson twice and solidified his grip on the heavyweight title, so a reign as champion for Williams seemed most unlikely. April 1964 saw Williams drop a close Split Decision in a rematch with Terrel.

November 1965 saw a tragic turn of events for the heavyweight contender. Williams was driving home in Houston with some friends when he was pulled over by a Texas Highway Patrolman named Dale Witten. Witten accused Williams of driving drunk and arrested him. "Big Cat" always maintained that while he had been drinking, he had not been drunk and was driving normally. Witten proceeded to drive Williams to an area of Houston that Williams later described as "tough on black folks." As this was segregation-era Texas, Williams became alarmed and Witten drew his .357 magnum on him. Still in the car, Williams tried to grab the pistol and was shot in the lower abdomen.

Williams lay in the street for some time while the police and local whites decided what to do with him. He eventually reached a hospital. Cleveland Williams lost 10 feet of his intestine in surgery and suffered permanent nerve damage that affected his upper left leg. Also, as the bullet was never removed, he began to suffer kidney damage as well. After this, "Big Cat" Williams was obviously a diminished man.

Muhammad Ali and Afterwords
Even in his weakened state, fighting was all Cleveland Williams knew, so he got back in the ring and started a comeback. By now Cassius Clay had won the title and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. Ali gave Williams his long awaited title shot in November 1966, only a year after the shooting. Ali demolished Williams in a display of ferocious grace and speed that has gone down in the books as Ali's finest performance. That description, however, has always been utterly unjustified when one considers that "Big Cat" Williams was little more than a shell of the puncher who had inspired such terror just a few years before.

This was more than demonstrated by the rest of Williams career. He became a "name opponent," and lost far more often than he won. Fringe contenders like Bob Cleroux, Al Jones, Mac Foster and Alvin Lewis all thumped him. So did George Chuvalo, although Chuvalo had the kind of chin that might have absorbed the fury of a "Big Cat" attack in its prime. He finally retired in October 1972.

Legacy
Cleveland "Big Cat" Williams retired with a 78-13-1 record, with 58 KOs. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1997, and Herb Goldman named Williams the #22 heavyweight of all-time. The Ring magazine ranked him 49th among its 100 Greatest Punchers of All-Time, and a Ring reader's poll concluded that he was one of the finest fighters in any division to have never won a title.

By the 1990s, his kidney damage had reached a point where Williams needed regular dialysis. Cleveland Williams was killed in a hit and run automobile accident in 1999.

Sources: cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/williams_bigcat.htm; boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=9382&cat=boxer&pageID=1; independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-cleveland-williams-1119362.html; nytimes.com/1999/09/15/sports/cleveland-williams-66-loser-to-ali-for-title-dies.html?pagewanted=1