Williams Defeats Moore

By Boxing News - 05/23/2008 - Comments

williams4644.jpgBy Jim Dower: It’s hard to believe that former IBF cruiserweight champion Arthur Williams (44-15-1, 30 KOs) is still fighting after all these years. On Wednesday night, Williams, now 43, defeated Clarence Moore (5-4-1, 5 KOs) by a 6-round unanimous decision at the Field House, in Camp Lejuene, North Carolina. The final judges’ scores were 60-52, 60-52 and 60-62, all for Williams. At one time, Williams had excellent hand speed and was known for his excellent jab and high work rate, and for having good power in either hand. Unfortunately, the speed is now largely gone, though his high work rate and good jab remains, if not the power.

Williams looked badly slowed in contrast to his championship form of 10 years ago, when he was briefly the IBF cruiserweight champion. However, he reached back from some of his old power in the 2nd round, hurting and dropping Moore with a big right hand. Near the end of the round, Williams connected with another big right hand that knocked Moore into the ropes, which held him up from falling down. This, then, was counted as a second knockdown of the round referee Mark Campbell. Williams, however, was unable to hurt him in the following four rounds and had to be content with winning by a lopsided decision.

Williams looked terribly slow in the 1st round, and it was what jumped out at me at once. It didn’t matter much, however, given that Moore was badly overmatched, with next to no experience as a professional boxer, and even then against only C-class fighters like himself. At this stage, Williams falls into that category himself, but at least has the knowledge, if not the skills anymore. Using mostly a slow jab, an occasional slower right hand and rusty looking left hook, Williams controlled the entire round. Moore did next to nothing in the round, and looked for all practical purposes out of his element.

Williams continued to do most of the fighting in the 2nd round, still mostly throwing jabs and saving his right hand as if it were chestnuts he was hording for the winter. When he finally did unload a right hand, good things happened as he dropped Moore like a sack of potatoes. Williams then vainly attempted to take out Moore, throwing a flurry of wide hooks to the head and body. Most of them landed okay, but due to the slowness of the shots, Moore had little problems seeing them coming and bracing himself for the impact. At the end of the round, Williams landed another good right hand that sent Moore flying into the ropes where he was hung briefly on the bottom rope. The referee then ruled this as another knockdown. Williams was unable to add to it, for the round ended fortunately for Moore.

Williams threw a lot of right hands in the 3rd, trying to take Moore out. However, Williams was unable to get the same kind of power that he did in the previous round, perhaps because he had punched himself out a little while going for the knockout at the end of the round. I got to hand it to him, though. Even though Williams was having rotten luck in taking out a fighter he should have easily stopped given his advantage in skills, he still impressed me with his tremendous work rate. Most younger fighters would be more than happy to throw as many punches as Williams was throwing, which made it all the more impressive given his ripe age of 43.

In rounds four through six, Williams seemed to understand that the knockout wasn’t going to happen, that he didn’t have quite enough power to take Moore out, and then decided to mostly use his jab to win the fight. He would still throw his right on occasion, but much less often than he did in the first three rounds. For his part, Moore started attacking much more often, but was only rarely able to land any of the punches he threw.