By Nate Anderson: Despite being penalized on three separate occasions in the final two rounds, British heavyweight Danny Williams (40-6, 31 KOs) was able to defeat John McDermott (25-4, 16 KOs) by a 12-round majority decision to win the BBBofC British heavyweight title last night at the Goresbrook Leisure Centre, Dagenham, in Essex. The final judges’ scores were 114-111, 114-113 and 113-113. I personally had Williams winning by 114-111, even with the three penalizations, which I felt was way out of line for the minor things that Williams was doing in the fight.

The timing of the fouls that were called – two in the 11th and one in the 12th – seemed somewhat strange, as it seemed to coincide with McDermott being hopelessly behind in the right. Without the points taken away from Williams, this was a pretty much one-sided fight with the pudgy-looking McDermott only appearing to win the 5th round. After the 5th, McDermott was exhausted, having blown his load and unable to muster anything other than feeble jabs for the rest of the fight.

In a lot of ways, this fight reminded me a lot of the first Edison Miranda vs. Arthur Abraham bout in that once the referee started calling Miranda for fouls, it seemed to unleash a flood of further fouls called against Williams. It’s kind of rare to see a referee penalize a fighter over and over again in such a short amount of time, because many of the referees probably feel that if they were to do that it would seem as if they’re piling on and changing the outcome of the fight.

Thankfully, Williams had such a big lead that this wasn’t able to happen, because it would have been a great tragedy for McDermott to win this fight, because he really only looked good in one round, the 5th, and spent the rest of the time looking scared or very, very tired. I don’t blame him for being tired, because he appeared to be at least 30 lbs overweight.

Williams, 35, dominated the first two rounds, hitting McDermott often with a stiff jab, and occasionally with a powerful right hand. McDermott looked petrified, frozen by the moment just as he did in his 1st round TKO loss to Matt Skelton in December 2005. In all, McDermott only landed a few shots in both rounds, spending the majority of the time looking like a big overweight deer with his eyes glued to an oncoming semi. Neither rounds were hardly close, as Williams totally dominated the action. The crowd, however, was firmly on the side of McDermott, meaning that despite the fact that he was getting easily beaten in both rounds, I figured at least one or possibly as many as two of the judges might have given both rounds to him.

McDermott continued doing absolutely nothing in rounds three and four, just following Williams around and absorbing punishment. Williams didn’t exactly look impressive himself, however, as he spent a lot of time posing, and not letting his hands go. He seemed almost as afraid of McDermott as he was of him, which made for a pretty dull fight during these rounds. Williams landed some big body shots in the 4th round, and landed some good right hands as well. McDermott’s right eye began showing signs of redness underneath during the round.

In the 5th round, McDermott finally came alive, hurting Williams with a huge left hand. After that, McDermott unleashed a flood of uppercuts, staggering Williams, and battering him ceaselessly for the entire round. This fight would have very likely have been stopped if it had occurred anywhere else but England, for Williams good some awful punishment during the round, getting drilled over and over again by the head shots from McDermott. However, by the end of the round, McDermott looked to have punched himself out, allowing Williams to get back into the fight.

In rounds six through ten, Williams came back looking as good as he had in the first four rounds, hitting a badly fatigued McDermott with big looping right hands and stinging jabs with great frequency. I kept expecting for McDermott to get his second wind and start fighting hard again like he had briefly in the 5th, but it didn’t happen. At most, McDermott was only able to three weak jabs, which were thrown as if he were pushing them underwater in slow motion. None of the shots were even close to what he was getting hit with from the heavy-handed Williams.

Despite taking a one-sided beating for most of the fight, luck was on McDermott’s side with referee Dave Parris, who chose the 11th round to penalize Williams not once but twice for fouls, the first being for a low blow. A minute later, Parris penalized Williams again, this time for pushing off with his gloves. Even with those two penalizations, however, Williams only lost the round by one point because he appeared to easily win the round due to his much better offensive attack against the still tired-looking McDermott.

In the 12th round, Williams was easily beating McDermott from one side of the ring to another, but once again Williams was penalized by the referee. This time it was because he twice had his mouthpiece knocked out in the round, and it looked as if he was tired, trying to get a rest break. I agreed with the referee for penalizing Williams on this occasion, because it seemed pretty obvious that Williams was trying to get a needed rest break.

However, I doubt that I would have called it myself because McDermott wasn’t doing much on his own, not throwing anything back and just getting pummeled by Williams. It wasn’t as if McDermott was suddenly going to shake the cobwebs out of his nonexistent offense and start throwing big leather again like he had in the 5th. He was too tired for that, and had reached the point of no return.