Boxing Results: Liam Williams destroys Robinson in 1st round KO

By Boxing News - 10/10/2020 - Comments

By Charles Brun: Liam Williams (23-2-1, 18 KOs) made quick work of Andrew Robinson (24-5-1, 7 KOs) in stopping him in the first round on Saturday night in a fight with the British middleweight title on the line at the BT Sport Studio, Stratford, England.

Williams, 28, put Robinson down with a perfectly placed left to the body in the first round. Robinson, 36, was too hurt to get up after the knockdown, and he was quickly counted out by referee Marcus McDonnell.

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The official time of the stoppage was at 1:28 of round one.

Liam’s promoters aren’t doing him any favors by matching him against such soft opposition like Robinson. This is the type of opponent that Willams should have gotten out of his system in his first year as a pro, not in his ninth year. I mean, come on. Where’s the upgrade in talent for Liam?

Williams looked hopping mad after suffering a cut

Liam seemed to snap after suffering a cut from a clash of heads midway through the round. The two fighters came together, which resulted in Williams being cut on the left side of his forehead.

Immediately after receiving the cut, Williams went after Robinson, nailing him with shots to the head and body. Williams looked visibly angry, which you can understand given that he wants to challenge WBO middleweight champion, Demetrius Andrade.

This was just a stay busy fight for Williams, and likely wasn’t expecting to suffer an injury that could delay his return to the ring in 2021.

The win for Williams was his eighth consecutive since losing to Liam Smith in 2017. However, his opposition has been mostly domestic level guys with limited talent. Williams hasn’t fought anyone remotely good in the last three years, and that’s the disappointing part.

Yeah, he’s winning his fights, but his competition has been pedestrian level fighters with no talent and weak chins. By this point, Williams’ promoters should have stepped him up against world-class opposition once again.

Williams is going to need more to his game if he’s to stand a chance against WBO middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade. He can’t go out there, and bum rush a talent like Andrade without getting worked over by him.

Andrade has a lot more ability than Williams’ conqueror Liam Smith, and it’ll end badly for him if he doesn’t change the way he fights. What Williams and his fans don’t realize is, Andrade can punch almost as hard as him, but he’s a far better boxer.

Williams is too crude with his fighting approach to last any length of time against a talent like Andrade.

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Liam knocked out Robinson too fast

Additionally, knocking out Robinson so quickly worked against what Williams needed, and that’s activity. Willams came into the fight, having been inactive since last December and needed to get in some rounds and failed to accomplished that tonight.

Having him eat up three years of his career with eight confidence booster-level opponents is an utter waste of time. Williams’ career is moving at the same glacial pace as Kell Brook’s, who didn’t start fighting quality opposition until his tenth year as a pro. Williams can’t afford to continue to spin his wheels like this if he wants to get a title shot before he ages out.

In Liam’s previous fight, he stopped Alantez Fox in the fifth round last December in another early knockout. The last time that Williams went deep into one of his fights was back in 2018 when he stopped Mark Heffron in the 10th round.

Wiliams lost to Liam Smith by a 12 round decision in their rematch in 2017. In that fight, he gassed out in the second half of the contest and ended up losing to Smith by the scores 117-111, 116-112 and 114-114

Nathan Gorman defeats Richard Lartey

In other action on the card, heavyweight Nathan Gorman (17-1, 11 KOs) got back to his winning ways in pounding out a boring 10 round unanimous decision over Richard Lartey (14-3, 11 KOs).

The scores were 100-9-, 99-92, and 100-90. Boxing News 24 had the 24-year-old Gorman pitching a shutout with a 100-90 score.

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Gorman held all night

The flabby-looking Gorman spent most of the fight using the ‘punch and grab’ technique to limit Lartey’s ability to throw shots. The referee Ian John Lewis let Gorman get away with his excessive clinching without penalizing or disqualifying him.

You can argue that Gorman should have been disqualified because his holding technique changed the outcome of the fight. So basically, he gamed the system with the holding and was allowed to do it by the referee, who looked like he was hanging out without doing his job.

You can’t say that Gorman has improved from his previous fight in losing to Daniel Dubois by a fifth-round knockout in July 2019. As far as I can tell, the only change that was made in Gorman’s game was his nonstop holding.

If this is going to be Gorman’s new style of fighting style from this point on, the audience members will need a lot of coffee to try and stay awake during his performances.

Gorman won’t be able to beat any of the talented heavyweights by holding them all night, but he will be able to survive against them using that approach. If that’s all Gorman wants to do, then he’ll succeed at keeping from getting knocked out. But if he wants to beat any of the top tier guys in the division, he’s going to have to lose the holding bit and go back to slugging.

Gorman wants to lose weight

“It’s been 16 months since I was  last in the ring, and we all know what happened. So it was good to get back,” said Gorman to BT Sports Boxing after the fight. “With a game opponent like Lartey, he definitely comes for a good. He’s not an easy opponent.

“It was good to get ten rounds out, so hopefully we can build on that. I was a bit heavy as well. I need to lose some weight and get back, and hopefully, I can get back out before Christmas and we can get the ball rolling. again.

“I gained a lot of weight, four or five stone in the 16 months off. So I’ve been in the gym losing weight and brushing up on a few technique pointers. Yeah, that was in the past now, and like I said before, I got ten rounds in the bank with Lartey. I’m going to get the ball rolling again and some momentum behind me.

“After the Daniel fight, I turned my phone off for two months and had no contact with no one, and I didn’t even go into the gym. I didn’t pick up a pair of boxing gloves. I was wondering if I should do it or shouldn’t I do it. Then I thought, ‘I’m going to give it another go,’ and here we are.

“I’m more hungry now than I’ve ever been. I agree,” said Gorman when told that David Haye said he wants to see him lighter. “I’m a stone and a half heavier than I normally am. As David knows, he’s a former heavyweight, that extra weight tells in the ring. But I’ve lost 35 kilos, but I keep moving now,” said Gorman.

“I think without the weight, he would have stopped Lartey,” said promoter Frank Warren. “He’s got fast hands and a great boxing brain, Nathan, and he did what he had to do. He’s had a long layoff. Obviously like a lot of people in lockdown, he put some weight on. What did you lose? 35 kilos?

“That’s a lump f weight to lose, but he’s got to get some more off and I think he’ll be a much better fighter for it. Tonight was his first step in that rung on the ladder in getting himself back in that company. He’s quite capable. Lartey, don’t underestimate him. He’s a very dangerous heavyweight.

“He comes, he throws bombs, he’s crude at times, but he’s fast and more than a handful,” Warren continued. “Nathan coming through that, he’s got that rust out of his system. He can get that weight off and get back into that swing. In the next six months, he should be challenging somebody in the world rankings.

“That’s what he needs to do now,” said Warren of Gorman. “He’s not someone that you want to keep giving warmup fight after warmup fight. He wants the challenges. I’ll make sure that he gets them.”

“It’s good to get back in the ring. I’ve missed it terribly,” said Gorman. “I could have easily come back and fought someone that I blew away in one round, but I’m that type of person that will fight anyone. As long as I get a fair notice in training camp, I’ll fight,” said Gorman.