By Chris Thomas: Unbeaten cruiserweight prospect Alexander Frenkel (14-0, 10 KOs) stopped former Interntioanl Boxing Federation cruiserweight champion Arthur “King” Williams (43-15-1, 30 KOs) tonight, stopping him in the 5th round of a scheduled eight-round bout at the Nuernberg Arena, in Nuremberg, Bayern, Germany. Fighting on the undercard of Nikolay Valuev vs. Sergei Lyakhovich WBA title eliminator, Frenkel, 22, had too much youth and power for the former champion Williams, 43, knocking him down twice in the bout, first in the second round and then another time in the 5th, causing referee Ernst Salzgeber to stop the fight at 2:02 of the 5th round.
In the 1st round, Frenkel came out looking really stiff, showing no head movement and standing perfectly straight up. However, he had nothing to worry about because Williams did little, aside from throwing an occasional pawing jab. I expected more from a former champion like Williams, but at 43 years-old, he appears to have very little left of his once impressive boxing skills.
Frenkel landed several jabs to the midsection of Williams, as well as several left hooks to the head. Frenkel’s left hook is clearly his best punch, and it’s considered his money punch. However, his right hand is quite weak in comparison, and something he needs to work on quite a bit when he starts taking on better fighters than Williams.
In the 2nd round, Frenkel continued fighting in a straight up manner, like a terminator or something, and because of it, he took a number of jabs to the head from Williams. Frenkel began to land with more power at the start of the round, hitting Williams with a mix of right and left hands. Around midpoint of the round, Frenkel hit Williams with two right hands followed by a left hook that stunned Williams, sending him backwards to the ropes.
Frenkel followed up with several single shots, hoping to end matters. Finally, Frenkel’s persistence paid off when he landed an excellent left hook that dropped Williams to the canvas. However, the punch appeared to catch Williams on the side of the head, and was more of a case of him being off balance than legitimately hurt by Frenkel. However, the round ended before Frenkel could find out for sure.
Frenkel totally controlled the 3rd round, as Williams, who had thrown next to nothing in the first two rounds, almost completely stopped punching in the third. Without anything coming back at him, Frenkel was able to slowly plod after Williams, landing mostly single shots which he’d load up on. Though Frenkel clearly won the round with relative ease, he looked like an amateur, certainly not any kind of future champ. Again, as in the previous rounds, no head movement or foot movement by Frenkel, just the big left hook. Very one-dimensional fighting by Frenkel, and not pleasing to look at.
In the fourth round, Frenkel began getting kind of over anxious looking for a knockout, as he rushed at Williams repeatedly, trying to bum rush him like his fellow German stable mates – Arthur Abraham and Marco Huck – tend to do. It’s an amateur move, but effective against the poor fighters that Huck and Abraham mostly tend to fight. However, Williams, a skilled pro, had an answer for Frenkel’s rushes by meeting him with a straight right hand that snapped his back, sending him backwards. After that experience, Frenkel fought more cautiously, picking his spots to avoid getting clobbered again.
Early on in the 5th round, Williams’ left eye was cut when Frenkel clashed heads with him. The cut wasn’t bad, however, and action quickly resumed. The cut appeared to give Frenkal confidence, for he immediately attacked Williams with a flurry of punches, a lot of them missing wildly. However, three left hooks landed consecutive, hurting Williams and sending him to the canvas. He bravely got to his feet, but after being checked out by the referee to see if he was okay, Williams turned his back on the referee and staggered to his corner. At that point, the referee had little option other than to stop the fight at 2:02 of the 5th round.
Frenkel needs to work on a lot of aspects to his game, because at this point he doesn’t compare favorably to the other top cruiserweights in the division, nor does he look nearly as good as two of the best prospects Alexander Alexeev and Yoan Pablo Hernandez, both ex-Olympic fighters based in Germany.