By Jim Dower: Former two-time WBO welterweight champion Paul Williams (39-1, 27 KO’s) will be challenging WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (45-2-2, 24 KO’s) for his title at a 157 pound catch weight on November 20th at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Williams and Martinez fought last year in December without a title on the line in a fight that ended with Williams winning a controversial 12 round majority decision. Both fighters exchanged knockdowns in the 1st round, but then things settled down to a bout where Martinez landed the harder shots while Williams focused on high volume punching.

The judges for the most part were more impressed with Williams’ high punch output and two of the three ended up giving him the decision. Boxing fans felt that Martinez had done more than enough to get the win. This time, Martinez wants to take the judges out of the equation by knocking Williams out.

In an article at examiner.com, Martinez says “This time around I an not going to leave any doubts. I am going to look to finish the fight as soon as possible. I will be more aggressive. I think that is what was missing in the previous fight. I am going to look for him with more aggression.” Martinez is right. He landed the harder shots, but he was too busy focusing on landing one punch at a time and not throwing enough combinations. Had he fought like he did in his 12 round decision win over WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik in April, Martinez likely would have won a decision.

I don’t think Martinez would have stopped Williams, because he has an excellent chin, but I think he would have done enough to win a decision. Martinez needs to be careful that he doesn’t get caught with some one Williams’ power shots. Although Williams isn’t known for being a big puncher, he can land some bombs at times that will get his opponents out early. However, Williams is mostly a fighter that gets his wins by landing a huge number of shots over the course of a fight to get his wins. Martinez needs to step up the pace against him because Williams will be going after him from the first round on trying to land a high number of shots.

Williams didn’t look very good in his recent fight with Kermit Cintron. Kermit was giving Williams problems up until the moment when Cintron suddenly leaped out of the ring in the 4th round and ended up hurting himself during his fall to the floor. Williams looked tentative in that fight and totally unlike the way he used to fight. Martinez will likely do really well against Williams if he fights like that again.