HBO decides not to approve Paul Williams vs. Nobuhiro Ishida, says ESPN

By Jason Kim: According to the latest boxing news, Dan Rafael of ESPN is reporting that HBO has had second thoughts about the scheduled July 9th 10 round bout between Paul Williams vs. Nobuhiro Ishida and are withdrawing approval for the fight. Williams, 29, will now have to look for another opponent to fight. Williams was stopped in the 2nd round by Sergio Martinez last November in a brutal knockout loss.

It’s not surprising then that Williams and his management would be interested in facing Ishida, because despite stopping James Kirkland in the 1st round in his last fight, Ishida really isn’t a big puncher. On paper, Williams-Ishida fight was one that looked to be a very winnable fight for Williams and one where there would be little danger of him being knocked out again unless his chin was badly compromised from the Martinez fight. With a knockout loss like that, Williams has to be careful in who he chooses.

Hopefully, HBO isn’t too selective because Williams really needs to be taking it easy for a while and fighting on undercards and not in the main event, which is what the Williams-Ishida fight was going to be. When you fight in the main event, it kind of forces you to take on a top fighter unless you can select a way his best named fighter like Shane Mosley and get away with it. Unfortunately, there isn’t too many Mosley-like fighters for Williams to get a nice easy win against. He’ll likely have to face a live body if he wants to fight in the main event on July 9th, and that’s the problem. Williams was knocked cold by a left hand from Martinez last November and he really needs to be careful in who he fights next.

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