By Nate Anderson: With last Saturday’s one round destruction of WBO welterweight champion Carlos Quintana, once beaten Paul Williams (34-1, 25 KOs) may have once again cemented himself in as the top welterweight in all of boxing, bar none. Forget all about WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto, because he has his hands full with former WBO welterweight champion Antonio Margarito, whom he fights on July 26th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Williams, 26, has already done the business of beating Margarito, having done that that by a 12-round unanimous decision on July 14th, 2007.

Once Cotto can do the same, or do it in even more impressive fashion, boxing fans can pretty much stay quiet about Cotto. Williams, though, he’s showed his worth as a champion by not only beating Margarito, but now having beaten a second welterweight champion in Quintana. Many fans and ring experts alike were giving Williams little chance at winning against Quintana, saying that the Puerto Rican fighter “had his number,” that there was “no way” that Williams could fix the problems in his game in only four months. Yet, that’s exactly what he did, not only fixing the problems but making himself almost invincible in the process.

Right now, I’d pick Williams as far and away the best fighter in the division. He matches up well with every welterweight in the division, most of which don’t have the style to beat Williams. The only one that did, Williams just beat in Quintana. Cotto is more of the type of fighter that Williams has traditionally done well against, the slow plodding type of a fighter similar to the fighters of the past. Cotto does well against shorter fighters, ones that don’t have much in the way of boxing skills. In his toughest fights of his career against Oktay Urkal and Shane Mosley, he faced fighters that used movement and a good jab to keep him under control for much of the bout.

Without a stationary fighter in front of him, with slow hand speed, Cotto was forced to fight for his life and barely came out on top. In the Urkal bout Cotto lost his cool in the later rounds of the fight when Urkal wouldn’t fold like so many of his other opponents before him. Urkal negated Cotto’s plodding attack style with a constant jab, movement and an occasional clinch. That’s all it took to beat Cotto.In Williams’ case, he has every element that Mosley and Urkal brought to the table and more. Williams’ has a huge work rate, good power and new jab that he revealed against Quintana last Saturday.

The jab makes Williams a complete fighter, in that he can now finally take advantage of his 6’2” height and long wingspan to easily beat short fighters like Cotto, the type that depend on fighting at close quarters. If this fight had taken place months ago, before Williams’ fight with Quintana, I’d have probably chosen Cotto to beat Williams. Not anymore. Williams is now at a higher level, a class all to himself at the top of the game. While we’re on the subject of Cotto, I’m not exactly sure that he’ll get by Margarito in July.

Margarito is like a poor man’s version of Williams, showing many of the same attributes – huge work rate, good power, unpredictable punching angles and good jab. None of Margarito’s offensive tools are at the level of Williams, but they’re close enough by far to beat a fighter like Cotto. Believe me, Cotto isn’t going to know how to deal with what Margarito brings to the table, because it’s something he’s not he’s had to experience before in his short career.

Even if he had, Cotto wouldn’t know how to deal with it because he doesn’t have the physical tools to beat Margarito even under the best circumstances available to him. Aside from Margarito and Cotto, there’s only Andre Berto remaining as a potential threat to Williams. However, Berto is too short, and weak-chinned to beat a fighter in Williams’ class. Berto is good if you stand in front of him throwing a limited amount of shots, but if the punches come in at unpredictable angles and a high rate, Berto would fold like a cheap suit.