Paul Williams decisions Lara; Sergio Martinez could be next

By Boxing News - 07/10/2011 - Comments

By Jim Dower: Paul Williams (40-2, 27 KO’s) didn’t look pretty in beating Erislandy Lara (15-1-1, 10 KO’s) last Saturday night by a questionable 12 round majority decision but Williams will take the win anyway he can get it. He was hit a lot in the fight by Lara’s left hand leads, and badly bloodied.

However, the questionable victory allows Williams to move towards his goal of fighting Sergio Martinez for a third time to try and avenge his 2nd round knockout loss to him last year in November. A Williams-Martinez III fight would give Williams a good payday and it would help round out his career. Williams only plans on fighting two or three more times and then retiring.

Obviously, a rematch with Lara, who isn’t a well known fighter among casual boxing fans, isn’t going to be worth it for Williams because the money won’t be there for him. The only question is whether Martinez will want to take the fight with Williams. He’s reportedly open to a third fight as long as the money and fan interest is there. It probably will be because Williams is one of the more popular fighters in the U.S, and he’s well known with casual boxing fans.

Last night, Williams had a hard time with the speed and movement from Lara. Williams plodded forward constantly but failed to keep his guard up to block the numerous left hands that Lara was clocking him with. There was no mystery to what Lara trying to do. He wanted to throw left hands as hard as he could and that’s exactly what he was doing.

Normally, Lara has a more varied attack in his fights, but against Williams he was throwing nothing but left hand power shots to try and get him out of there. It didn’t work, but he did appear to stun Williams on one or two occasions with hard left hands.



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