Sergio Martinez knocks out Paul Williams
Monday, November 22, 2010
Despite his epic crash, this doesn’t necessarily mean the end for Paul Williams
November 22nd, 2010
Chris Robinson
examiner.com
While this past Saturday will forever go down as one of the most memorable nights in the life of Sergio Gabriel Martinez, so too will it be looked at as a dreaded time for Paul ‘The Punisher’ Williams. With one picturesque left hand, Martinez ended Williams’ night in shocking fashion as well as defending his prized WBC junior middleweight belt for the first occasion. Discussions instantly turned to the Argentinean’s future while Williams was left as a mere afterthought by some.
When looking back at the sport of boxing there certainly are cases of promising talents being laid to waste with a single shot and still finding a way to cope with the defeat and go on to have success with their careers. ‘Terrible’ Terry Norris comes to mind, as he was iced with a crushing right hand by Julian Jackson in July of 1989 in Atlantic City yet found a way to capture the WBC junior middleweight title four fights later while establishing himself as one of the world’s best at 154 over the next seven years due to his pristine conditioning, quality skill set and willingness to lay his neck on the line.
At 29 years of age Paul Williams is no longer the young pup that first introduced himself to the masses on the airwaves of ESPN. In the past few years he has stepped up the level of his competition, migrated between 147 and 160 pounds and also tasted defeat now on two occasions. Williams suffered the first blemish on his ledger when he was out hustled by Puerto Rico’s Carlos Quintana in February of 2008 and the mistake he seemed to make against Martinez was his throwing away of his boxing basics and instead opting to look for the kill early on.
Slideshow: Telling images of Paul Williams’ knockout defeat
Video: Sergio knocks out Williams
Perhaps Martinez’ promoter Lou Dibella put it best after the fight when he noted that Williams would be better off at 147 or 154 pounds for his future endeavors. In those weight classes Paul had always shown a very solid chin and after seeing him crumble from a single shot from Martinez you have to wonder if a move back south would be beneficial.
What Williams has going for himself is the fact that he is a rangy and awkward southpaw with the ability to throw punches in bunches. He makes for a good sized junior middleweight and an extremely huge welterweight and there are surely fighters out there who would be willing to face him now that he is on the comeback trail after showing some weaknesses in his last outing.
The cons with Williams is that he doesn’t seem to be the most level-headed fighter inside of the ring, as despite his obvious talents he seems content with simply getting into the thick of the action and firing away as opposed to executing a well designed game plan. The fact that he has always had a suspect defense further adds to Williams’ issues and it may be something that will cling to him for the rest of his career.
You can’t look over Williams’ career without recognizing his potential. He showed true grit in holding off the challenge of Antonio Margarito in Carson, California. He was the only man to soundly defeat Winky Wright less than a year later at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was viscous in blasting out Quintana in under three minutes to exact revenge in their rematch. And the first time around against Martinez he was effective by simply staying busier and finding away to weather the storms that came his way. His recent loss doesn’t take away from what he had accomplished prior.
More than anything it is the mentality of a fighter that will define how he comes back from a knockout defeat and Williams seems eager to get back on the horse. We’ve already seen him in situations that have been both heartbreaking and glorious, with the recent Martinez affair obviously being one that will leave a lasting impression. Prior to Saturday night’s fight Williams may have been slightly looking ahead of himself after calling out the likes of Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather and while his night surely ended on a humble note it doesn’t mean the end of Paul Williams.
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