Green vs. Williams On Friday

Super middleweight Allan Green (25-1, 18 KOs) hopes to continue with resurrecting his once promising career when he takes on the tough Ruben Williams (29-2-1, 16 KOs) at the Million Dollar Elm Casino, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Green, 28, was being groomed as a future middleweight champion when he ran into Edison Miranda, who knocked him down twice, defeating him by 10-round unanimous decision in March 2007. However, unknown to most people, Green wasn’t well at the time of the bout, and required extensive surgery afterwards to remove much of his colon.

Green came back quickly from the surgery and responded with a 1st round TKO over Darrell Woods in July 2007, and then a 2nd round TKO over Sherwin Davis in October. Now Green, ranked # 13 in the International Boxing Federation, is stepping it up once again by taking on veteran Williams, who is mostly known for having given Jeff Lacy a tough time before being stopped in the 7th round in March 2005.

However, Williams hasn’t been fighting with much urgency in the past couple of years, only fighting twice in 2006, with unanimous decision victories over Richard Grant and Max Heyman, and once in 2007, a 12-round draw with the hard-punching Antwun Echols. At 31, Williams needs to start moving quickly if he wants to someday land a shot at the super middleweight title. A win against Green, even though he’s still ranked quite low in the division, would be a tremendous boost to Williams’ career because Green is highly thought of by most boxing fans and experts. The bout will be shown live on ESPN Friday night fights, so both Green and Williams will be getting a lot of visibility for the fight.

It would seem that Green, a fighter with good power and blinding speed, would appear to have too much offensive ammunition for the slower, weaker punching Williams to cope with. However, Green has shown to have a weak chin, being dropped several times in his career, so anything is possible if Williams can land something big in the fight. No doubt, Green will be going directly at Williams in the first few rounds, attempting to impress the huge national audience with a fast knockout. There’s no mystery about what Green is going to try to do. It’s going to be up to Williams to see if he can take advantage of Green’s urgency by greeting him with some of his own bombs, and perhaps score a surprising knockout.