Paul Williams was lucky to escape with a victory Saturday night. Sergio Martinez was everything that Williams could handle and at some points more during their middleweight bout in Atlantic City.Martinez(44-2-2) and Williams(38-1) put on a semi-classic that had fireworks from the opening round till the final bell. Both men scored knockdowns in round 1, Martinez's coming at the end of the round.
For the first three rounds Williams had trouble locating Martinez. Sergio used good movement and was able to counter Paul, landing clean shots of his own. On several occasions Martinez tattooed Williams with big right hands. The attack was similar to the fight with Williams & Carlos Quintana.
The middle rounds were better for Williams, although he did sustain a cut in the fourth due to a headbutt. Paul was able to land his jab, but not much else that ever hurt Martinez. Even with William's high activity rate, Sergio was still landing the bigger and more hurtful shots. I never once saw "The Punisher" set down on any punch.
After six rounds I had the fight scored 57-57.
The second half of the fight saw a war of will and stamina take hold of a wonderful bout. Both Williams and Martinez showed fatigue from about round seven on, but both pressed forward trying to fight their fight.
Martinez never appeared intimidated by the man that has just been deemed "the most avoided fighter in boxing". He fought a slick fight, and I do mean slick. He moved away from the long armed Williams with great skill. Williams corner pleaded for body work, but Paul couldn't get there. Sergio was able to effectively neutralize some of what Williams is about.
Unfortunately though for the Spaniard, he was only able to stop some of what Williams is about. The thing about Paul that you have to realize is that he is throwing punches whether they land flush or not. He's a guy with a motor to throw. The volume outweighs the connect percentage. His points add up on sure aggressiveness and pursuit.
In the later rounds Williams bled badly from the face and mouth, as a result of some clean blows landed from Martinez, but he continued to throw punches.
The fatigued worsened for Martinez down the stretch. It was clear that if both men had trained for each other for 90 days that this would have been a different fight.
Going into the 12th and final round I had it scored 106-103 for Williams
The 12th was two guys trying to finish a marathon of carnage. They both landed a few, clinched more than they punched, and escaped with a standing ovation from the crowd.
As to be expected with boxing there was some 'questionable' scoring at the end. Here are your official scores:
Julie Lederman 114-114
Lynne Carter 115-113 (Williams)
Pierre Benoist 119-110 (Williams)
There wasn't a person watching the fight at the arena nor at home on their couch that would have scored that fight 119-110. The people that watched with me called a draw when the fight was over. I actually had it 116-112 for Williams, and it was very close. A couple of rounds that I gave Williams could easily have been for Martinez. I gained a new respect for Sergio and hope to see him in some good fights very soon.
I'm a Paul Williams fan, (that's if you weren't paying attention) and his performance tonight left me happy that he was victorious but concerned about him in the future. This certainly wasn't his best performance and he once again struggled with another southpaw. His team needs to look at some of the defensive flaws that were exposed tonight and make the necessary corrections. If they do that, great. But I fear if they don't, the top competition he seeks may be able to take advantage of some weaknesses.
At the end of the bout, both fighters said they had little problem with a rematch if that's what HBO wanted. For Paul Williams' sake, he should move on from fighting slick southpaws. It's a bad career move.
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