By Eric Tomas: In surveying the horizon of the welterweight to the super middleweight divisions, I can’t see any fighter that can touch Paul Williams (36-1, 27 KOs), who currently holds titles in both the welterweight and light middleweight divisions, and looked near invincible in mowing down his competition. Though he’s been beaten once previously, a close 12-round decision loss to Carlos Quintana, Williams had learned from his mistakes in that fight, and avenged the defeat with a blistering 1st round TKO of Quintana in June 2008. Now bored with the welterweight division, and unhappy with the top fighters in the division, who are seemingly terrified of him, Williams has decided to expand his options by moving up into the higher weight classes to capture titles.
Most recently, he easily defeated Verno Phillips by an 8th round stoppage on November 29th, to capture the World Boxing Organization (WBO) light middleweight title. Using a powerful body attack, Williams blasted Phillips to the body and hurt him continuously in the fight until he eventually folded after the 8th round.
Now, however, Williams is going is looking for other worlds to conquer. Ideally, he’d like to fight WBA welterweight champion Antonio Margarito again, but so far, Margarito has shown little interest in getting back in the ring with Williams. This after Williams defeated Margarito by a 12-round decision July 2007.
Joshua Clottey, the IBF welterweight champion, has been mentioned as a potential opponent for Williams. However, that’s hardly the big game that Williams should be looking for. Clottey’s a good fighter, don’t get me wrong, but he’ll be way in over his head in a fight with Williams and wouldn’t know what to do with the massive amount of punches that are being thrown at him by the long-armed Williams.
Vernon Forrest, the WBC light middleweight champion, is someone Williams would gain some clout by beating. Forrest is vastly experienced, has good name and recently defeated Sergio Mora in an impressive bout. Williams would match up well with Forrest, who although an excellent with good boxing skills, has seen a drop off in his work rate in the past couple of years. Williams would likely take advantage of this in pounding out a decision over him if they were to meet.
Kelly Pavlik, the WBC/WBO, middleweight champion, is far and away the best middleweight in the division. However, he just suffered a disappointing 12-round decision loss to Bernard Hopkins recently, and he’s probably still feeling the effects mentally from his one-sided loss to him. This would be the best time to fight him and take advantage of any lingering effects to his self confidence.
I see Williams outworking him and beating him by a decision. Pavlik has a good chin and wouldn’t have problems taking Williams shots, but he would have trouble trying to keep up with his high work rate. However, Williams would have to stay on the outside, because he could ill afford to stand in front of someone as powerful as Pavlik and try to trade shots with him all night long. Pavlik hits too hard to be taken lightly like that, and would break Williams down if he makes the mistake of fighting him like that.
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