By Sam Gregory: In a fight that is easily the most anticipated rematch for 2010, undisputed middleweight champion Sergio Martinez 45-2-2 with 24 KO’s is set to defend his newly acquired WBC middleweight title against Paul “The Punisher” Williams 39-1 with 27 KO’s in a scheduled 12 round bout at a catch weight of 158 lbs.

The Martinez vs Williams II bout takes place this weekend, Saturday November 20th at Boardwalk Hall Atlantic City, New Jersey and is promoted by Goossen Tutor Promotions and DiBella Entertainment in association with Caesars Atlantic City which will be broadcast on HBO’s World Championship Boxing at 10PM est.

In their first bout on December 5, 2009, Sergio Martinez and Paul Williams put on a “Fight of the Year” quality bout in which Williams knocked Martinez down early in the first round with an overhand right and Martinez evened the score as the round was coming to a close, sending Williams to the canvas with a right hook to the temple. Both men put on a remarkable display of pugilistic talent inflicting and absorbing punishment that went back and forth for 12 rounds. In the end, Williams won on two scorecards, 119-110, 115-113 and drew on the third card, 114-114 for a majority decision win, leaving everyone in the arena and watching on HBO clamoring for a rematch.

Coming off such an even fight the first time around, it’s no surprise that both men are given fairly even odds in the rematch. Martinez is coming into this fight with more momentum since he won the middleweight title from Kelly Pavlik in April of this year. Paul Williams has been somewhat stagnant after the odd occurrences in his fight with Cintron.

Even though the overall odds for this fight are so close they don’t provide much of a betting advantage, the over/under for the fight is the most intriguing bet for the betting community. Since both men traded knockdowns in the first round of the first fight, the potential for this fight to end in a knockout has the highest betting odds.

That betting edge becomes especially clear when you look at the CompuBox stats for the first fight. Williams was the busier puncher with 976 total punches to Martinez’ 638 total punches; Williams also landed more 300-254 while Martinez landed the harder shots and also landed 41% of his power shots. Of 554 total punches landed, 389 were power shots. Judge Pierre Benoist gave Martinez ONE round; according to some ringside media professionals (particularly CompuBox officials) Benoist should be banned from judging boxing for life!

An overall breakdown of the two fighters:

The 29 year old southpaw Paul Williams 39-1 with 27 KO’s stands 6’ 1” with an 82” reach. He is currently #5 on Ring magazines pound for pound list and the number 2 middleweight contender. Williams has moved between 147 and 160 lbs for much of his career. Most long armed tall lanky fighters like Williams tend to use their height and reach to box their opponents, instead of doing that Williams applies those assets as a pressure fighter. The fact that Williams can make weight at 147 pounds with relative ease is a testament to his conditioning, and throwing 100 punches per round is perfectly normal for him.

Williams’ style lead him to a unanimous decision over Antonio Margarito in July of 2007, beating the Mexican at his own game back when people thought Margarito was indestructible. Williams lost a unanimous decision to Carlos Quintana in February of 08’ but than learned from that encounter returning four months later to stop Quintana in one round. Williams also has a good win over the somewhat one dimensional banger Kermit Cintron as well as wins over the faded Winky Wright, Sharmba Mitchell and Verno Phillips. Williams also pulled out a majority decision over Sergio Martinez in their first fight.

35 year old southpaw Sergio Gabriel Martinez 45-2-2 with 24 KO’s stands 5’ 10” with a 76” reach. Martinez is in the #6 spot on the Ring magazine pound for pound list; he is the undisputed middleweight champion of the world and holds the WBC middleweight championship belt. After years of being a relatively unknown fighter Martinez came into his own when he beat Kelly Pavlik for the middleweight title in April of this year (2010).

Martinez’ record is not a good indicator of how good of a fighter he actually is, other than his very close hotly contested loss to Williams, Martinez hasn’t lost a fight since 2000.Martinez should have been declared the winner 3 times in his fight with Cintron; in round 7 Cintron was clearly hit and counted out but argued nonsense about a headbutt. The commentator’s, Max Kellerman and Lennox Lewis said Cintron w1as on his feet by the count of 10 but he should have been disqualified from arguing with the referee and he was clearly out boxed the entire fight by Martinez. But instead Martinez was screwed out of his win by one of the worst examples of boxing officiating in probably the past 100 years.

Many people think he beat Williams the first time around (not necessarily me). Martinez is a good well rounded boxer-puncher who uses movement to good defensive and offensive effect.

In a press conference for this fight Martinez said he couldn’t think of any weakness of Paul Williams he could capitalize on or exploit, “he’s a very complete fight” Martinez said.

When Williams was asked what would be different in this fight compared to the first fight Williams said he had much more time to prepare for this fight, 3 months instead of 3 weeks; he didn’t work on things he could have the first time around. Williams is also predicting an 8th round knockout saying he (Williams) will be the middleweight champion of the world. Williams also said there could be a third and possibly fourth fight with Martinez.