Martinez stops Williams cold in round 2

By Boxing News - 11/21/2010 - Comments

Image: Martinez stops Williams cold in round 2By Sam Gregory: In a press conference for the most highly anticipated rematch for 2010, Sergio Martinez 46-2-2 with 25 KO’s said he couldn’t think of any weakness of Paul Williams 39-2 with 27 KO’s he could capitalize on or exploit. Martinez said that Paul Williams was a very complete fighter but he predicted a knockout before the tenth round.

It certainly appears that the Argentinean middleweight champion of the world must have had a crystal ball when looking to the defense of his middleweight title against the 29 year old contender who just one year earlier dropped the champ in the first round. In the first round of tonight’s fight Williams looked like the complete fighter who was faster and was beating Martinez to the punch. At the end of round one it looked like it was Paul Williams who was in control of the fight. With his speed and accurate punches it was Williams who was dictating the offensive flow of the fight.

When the bell sounded for the start of the second round Williams again came out fast and hard throwing solid shots with accuracy. It looked like Martinez was in for a long night when it seemed his only option was to hold Williams in a clinch when the fighting was in close.

Than at 1:10 of the second round Sergio Martinez landed a solid left to the side of Williams’ head that dropped the challenger like a ton of bricks. Williams went down and didn’t move from a punch he never saw coming. Sergio Martinez knocked out Paul Williams in less than five minutes in a fight that many were predicting to be a candidate for fight of the year. It turned out to be the knockout of the year in Martinez’ first defensive of the undisputed middleweight championship of the world he won from Kelly Pavlik just this past April.

For the first time in his relatively short career Sergio Martinez was having his name included with great middleweight fighters like Sugar Ray Robinson and Marvin Hagler. Martinez is standing at the top of the middleweight mountain with a very short list of possible challengers. After tonight’s fight HBO commentator Max Kellerman talked of the only two fighters who are currently ranked higher than Martinez on the pound for pound list, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. Mayweather doesn’t look like he’s in any hurry to sign to fight anybody and for once Pacquiao may be looking up at a fighter just too big for him to fight.

After Martinez’ second round knockout of Paul Williams tonight it appears that Martinez has his feet firmly planted at the top of the boxing mountain with no serious challengers in sight.

Sergio Martinez improved his record to 46-2-2 with 25 knockouts while Paul Williams suffered the second loss of his career, the first by knockout and fell to 39-2 with 27 knockouts.



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