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The Punisher: Who Will Step into
the Warzone with Paul Williams?
By Daniel Poland-May 5, 2009
Standing at six feet one inch, with a reach longer
then the heavyweight champion of the world and a man who throws over a
hundred punches a round, has 2-Division World Champion Paul Williams 37-1,
27 KO’s, really done himself any favors in search of bigger fights after his
twelve one sided rounds over defensive wizard Ronald “Winky” Wright.
Williams has rightfully inherited the nickname as the most feared fighter in
the world, and there aren’t many people out there that will wish to get in
the ring with this man. A fighter who can skip through weight classes with
relative ease and dominate his opponents is quite a statement.
He burst onto the scene when he went toe to toe with the former most feared
fighter in the world Antonio Margarito. It was July 14th, 2007, at The Home
Depot Center and Williams was fighting for the first time for a world title
when Margarito put his WBO Welterweight Championship on the line. Williams
took advantage of Margarito’s proneness to having a slow start as he put his
punch output to good use and dominated the early rounds of the fight. In the
later rounds, he showed great resolve as Margarito fought his way back to
make it a close fight on the scorecards, but the early lead Williams had
gained was enough to see him crowned the new Welterweight Champion of the
World.
It looked as though “The Punisher” had struck fear into his welterweight
foes as he found it difficult to find an opponent for his first defense. One
opponent they did find that was happy enough to have another chance of
winning a world title was Puerto Rican Carlos Quintana. Williams was the
heavy favorite, but on fight night Quintana proved a worthy contender as he
out boxed the taller Williams, leaving him a bit bewildered. It came to a
shock to everyone including myself what we had witnessed, with Quintana
winning a unanimous decision, handing Williams the first loss of his
professional career and taking the title away in his first defense.
The former champion stated after the fight that he just had a bad night and
that he would sign for an immediate rematch. It was four months later and
Williams had a chance to become a 2-Time Welterweight Champion. Could
Quintana apply the strategy that won him the first fight or would Williams
be more aware and adapt quickly to Quintana’s awkwardness? The question was
answered within three minutes as Williams stunned everyone, knocking out
Quintana in the first round. It was the perfect comeback and Williams had
once again put his name at the top of the most avoided fighters list.
Unable to find any significant fights at welterweight, Williams moved up in
weight, not to junior middleweight but one more to middleweight. There were
even talks of him fighting Middleweight Champion Kelly Pavlik, but as that
fight never materialized, he found little known Andy Kolle. Williams wasn’t
in search of a big fight at middleweight…he was just challenging himself to
see if he could handle the competition at 160, and he handled it far easier
than anyone expected as he knocked out Kolle in the very first round, making
quite a statement to the division, He had shown that he can easily carry the
weight and not lose any of his power.
Read More ·
**Courtesy of
www.ringsidereport.com
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