By Chris Thomas: In an incredible shocking upset, World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Paul Williams (33-1, 24 KOs) was defeated by a 12-round unanimous decision to challenger Carlos Quintana (25-1, 19 KOs) tonight at the Pechanga Resort & Casino, in Temecula, California. Quintana, 31, had little trouble with Williams slapping punches, as he chose to stay on the outside, preventing Williams from landing his usual high number of shots, often more than 100 per round.

Instead, Quintana would periodically come inside, landing a flurry of hard shots, and then escape out of range of Williams windmill shots. It proved tobe quite effective strategy for Quintana, because without a target standing directly in front of him, Williams was forced to use his jab, a weapon that surprisingly the 6’2″ Williams rarely uses. In the early rounds of the fight, Quintana build up a small lead, mostly due to his hard left hand shots.

In the middle of the fight, Williams began to land much more often, as he was able to get within distance, forcing Quintana to an uncomfortable position of having to trade shots with him. At that point, it looked like only a matter of time before Williams knocked him out just as Miguel Cotto had done two years earlier. However, Quintana quickly came back to life, once again landing hard left hand shots to win most of the exchanges with the slapping Williams. Paul continued to press the action on Quintana, but he had nothing on his punches, which were no match for the harder, more accurate left hands from Quintana.

Overall, it was an excellent win for Quintana, who now as the new WBO welterweight champion, has opportunities presented to him that Williams, due to his huge size, perhaps never could have gotten. There, of course, is the prospect of a rematch with Cotto, who embarrassed Quintana two years ago by destroying him in five rounds. Besides that, there are other fights, possibly unifications with other champions, such as the winner of the Antonio Margarito vs. Kermit Cintron IBF welterweight championship. That’s not to say that Quintana will beat any of them, because I don’t see him being able to come close to being able to beat Margarito or Cotto, but it would present a big payday for him, even in losing.