By Eric Thomas: With his controversial 12 round majority decision over Erislandy Lara last weekend, Paul Williams (40-2, 27 KO’s) is moving on to bigger and better things rather than trying to clear up matters by giving the southpaw Lara a rematch. Williams is now reportedly targeting junior middleweight fringe contender Carlos Molina (19-4-2, 6 KO’s) for his next fight, according to boxing news from Dan Rafael on his twitter.
Molina isn’t well known among casual boxing fans, but he’s known by hardcore fans and is coming off of an impressive 10 round unanimous decision win last Saturday night over Kermit Cintron. Earlier this year, Molina and Lara fought to a controversial 10 round draw in a fight that many fans felt Molina should have won in March.
Molina landed the better shots in that fight and wore Lara down on the inside during the second half of the bout. However, the scores didn’t reflect that actual fight that took place in the year. Williams looked poor in beating Lara last Saturday night, and more than a few fans think that Williams should have lost. However, if Williams can beat Molina, the guy that fans thought should have been given the decision over Lara, then Williams will be redeeming himself in a way.
Molina, 28, is no stranger to controversial decisions, as he lost two fights to Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and another fight to Mike Alvarado in the past. A lot of boxing fans thought that Molina should have won all three of those fights and I’m in agreement with that. I thought was clearly the better man in his two bouts with Chavez Jr. and slightly better than Alvarado.
One of the problems that is keeping Williams from going back and giving Lara a rematch is that Williams is only planning on fighting two or three more times and then retiring from boxing. Because of this, he’s trying to get the most out of the little time he has left in the sport.
Although it would be nice for Williams to fight Lara again, it’s not a fight that would attract a lot of attention from the larger casual fans, who have no clue who Lara is. Williams is better off moving on and taking on more popular fighters that can bring him more money before he retires. Williams would like to fight Sergio Martinez one more time. They’ve fought twice with Williams winning the first fight and Martinez the second. Williams wants more shot to see who the better fighter is.
Comments are closed.