Williams gets destroyed by Martinez

By Boxing News - 11/21/2010 - Comments

Image: Williams gets destroyed by MartinezBy Dan Ambrose: Paul Williams (39-2, 27 KO’s) made the mistake of trying to slug with World Boxing Council (WBC) middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (45-2-2, 25 KO’s) on Saturday night and he paid for it by getting knocked cold in the 2nd round in their fight at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. With both fighters throwing left hands at the exact same time, Martinez’s shorter left got there first and knocked Williams clean out. Williams fell to the canvas face first where he laid there out cold for a short period of time before he was helped to a sitting position by the ring doctor.

It was a bad mistake on Williams’ part in trying to load up with his shots instead of focusing on his high volume punching like he did in his 12 round decision win in their first fight in December 2009. Williams won that fight by a 12 round majority decision. However, Martinez took a different tactic in this bout. Instead of moving a lot and throwing occasional hard pot shots, Martinez went right at Williams from the first round trying to slug it out.

Martinez had great success landing hard left hands and short combinations on the inside in the opening round of the fight. Martinez continued to fight hard during clinches, landing short uppercuts and some rabbit shots. Williams, for his part, threw wide shots and didn’t do much in the 1st round until late when he was able to land some nice left hooks and good left uppercut as the round was coming to a close. But the fight was much different with Martinez throwing power shots.

It looked as if he was betting on being able to hurt Williams and take him out before he faded from this kind of fighting style. It was a gamble that paid off for Martinez, because in the 2nd round he began to land even more hard left hands to the head that got the crowd really into it each time Martinez would land. In response to getting hit hard and hearing the crowd cheer for Martinez, Williams went after Martinez trying to pay him back with hard shots of his own.

This ultimately was Williams’ undoing because when he attempted to land an especially hard left hand, Martinez came with his shorter left hand shot that connected before Williams’ punch and knocked him flat on his face on the canvas. Williams was out before he hit the floor, as he just dropped like dead weight. He laid on the canvas with both his eyes still open but unseeing.

It’s hard to see what Williams do now. Sure, they can have a third fight between them, but the way that Williams was knocked out, I think he’d be better off taking it easy for awhile because he could be susceptible to getting knocked out again if he faces Martinez anytime soon.
For Martinez, he’s wiped out the best fighters in the middleweight division with his wins over Kelly Pavlik and Williams now. There’s not much else for him to fight at this weight class other than Felix Sturm, but he’s virtually unknown in the United States and the casual fans don’t know or care who Sturm is. It’s too bad that Bob Arum ruled out his fighter Manny Pacquiao taking on the winner of tonight’s fight because a Sergio Martinez vs. Pacquiao fight would have been an exciting fight.



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