BoxRec

Whats the story with Billy Daniels chin? I've just been going through his record and it seems an odd one. He went 16-0 before his first loss to Muhammad Ali on a cut. He goes the distance with punchers such as Mike DeJohn, Cleveland Williams and Jeff Merritt but is stopped in the 1st round four times in his career and is knocked out by light punching Karl Mildenberger a year after losing to Ali.

Was he just a slow starter or just hard to hit? Frazier had him down several times so he could obviously take a punch. I can't say I know a lot about him.

He was basically just a guy that wasnt that good to begin with but who was really washed up very shortly into his career. His ten rounder with Claude Chapmen gave hints that he wasnt all his undefeated record indicated and when Ali beat him it burst the bubble. He was one of those touted fighters we see that cant really recover from a loss. He managed to beat DeJohn but Dejohn was really past his best (being in the last year of his 12 year career as a human shock absorber) and Alongi and Doug Jones (due mainly to using his size to keep the smaller Jones away) were impressive and surprising wins but he simply could not hold together that kind of consistency. By the time of that first first round KO he was already finished and the last two of those first round KOs came very late in his career after he had retired and come back.

Daniels stoppage to Mildenberger seems really odd, although on a losing run he had only been stopped once by Ali on a cut, he went the distance with heavy handed Cleveland Williams then gets knocked out early by feather fisted Mildenberger whose previous 12 wins were all on points, then a few fights later Daniels goes the distance with Williams again, no wonder his manager left.

Daniels is one of those forgotten guys who was once a hot prospect but whose career really fell apart after his first few losses. He was a pretty good, but not great, boxer with a very hard sneaky right cross.

One thing about Daniels is he had a very big frame on his 6'4 body (I think his reach was around 83'') but he was very thin for his frame, weighing only 188-190 lbs. Like Ernie Terrell, I think he would have benefited from a strength program in which he got up to at least 210.

Another thing looking at his record is his management kind of threw him to the wolves and didn't let him have some confidence builders after losing. He had impressive wins after the cut stoppage to Ali over DeJohn and Alongi, but after losing to Williams (in a fight in which he wobbled Cleveland in the first but eventually got overwhelmed by William's power over the course of the bout) he fought Jones, Folley and Mildenburger; a tough schedule and he lost all three. His upset in a rematch with a then streaking Jones (in which Daniels came in as a late sub for Alongi) was his last hurrah and I think the rest of his career as a journeyman was as much a collapse of confidence as any indication of his limits as a fighter.

Oddly enough in his second to last bout he held the infamous Jeff Candy Slim Merritt to a draw.

Merritt was finished at that point anyway, and overrated to begin with.