By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten cruiserweight prospect Aaron Williams (17-0-1, 12 KOs) will take on the hard-hitting Colombian Jose Luis Herrera (15-4, 15 KOs) in a scheduled 10-round bout tonight on the ESPN card at the Twin River Event Center, in Lincoln, Rhode Island. Williams, only 22, is a former 9-time U.S. amateur champion, and Gold medal winner in the 2003 U.S. National PAL Championships, and is thought to be one of the best prospects in the cruiserweight division by many people.
Williams has recorded a high percentage of knockouts on his record, which includes eight 1st round knockouts. Also among the many early knockouts is a 2nd round KO of DeLeon Tinsley, an especially brutal one-punch knockout that was seen on ESPN, and later became one of their highlight reel knockouts that they frequently show to viewers. The funny thing is, though he has a lot of knockouts, Williams isn’t that hard of a puncher, at least as far as one-punch power goes. He mostly gets his knockouts from an accumulation of punches he lands and also because of his blinding speed.
At this point, he’s still fought next to nobody in his short three year professional boxing career. In his last fight, however, Williams stepped it up against Andre Purlette, clearly his best opponent to date, and had a little bit of problems in the 2nd round when the heavy-handed Purlette unloaded on him with some powerful body shots. Up until then, Williams had been fighting in a cautious manner, looking a little timid and wary of Purlette’s impressive power. However, something seemed to snap inside of Williams once Purlette began to land some heavy shots, for Williams suddenly unloaded with a flurry of shots while backed against the ropes, and dropped Purlette to the canvas. The punches were like a blur, hard to see and very powerful.
I was frankly surprised when Purlette staggered to his feet and let the referee know that he wanted to continue fighting. Looking at him, Purlette looked in no condition to meet the kind of fire power that Williams was getting ready to unload on him. Once the action resumed, Williams tore into him with shots coming from every angle, making him seem like he had four hands instead of two. Purlette attempted to block some of them, but he looked like he was in slow motion compared to the lightning fast shots that were coming in at him from Willaims. Shortly thereafter, Williams landed a huge left hand, hurting Purlette further, and causing for the fight to be stopped.
Williams’ opponent tonight will be the 28 year-old Herrera, who has lost three out of his last four fights coming into tonight’s bout. What’s worse, though, is that all three losses have come by knockout. If there’s any kind of an excuse that can be made on the part of Herrera, it’s that the losses have come to hard punchers (Lafarrell Bunting, Jorge Castro and Tavoris Cloud). Not a bad bunch of fighters, yet it does seem to indicate that Herrera has a problem in the chin department, given the fact that most of the knockouts have come fairly early on. He does have good power himself, however, which would seem to be his only chance against Williams tonight.
For Herrera to win, he’s going to have to get to Williams almost immediately, for if he waits too long he’ll likely find himself planted on the canvas in the first or second round by Williams. I’m suspecting that this will be another 1st round TKO for Williams, who really needs to start considering stepping it up in competition in the near future.