Following his unanimous decision victory over Former WBC heavyweight champion Oliver McCall 41-8(31) in a non televised bout Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, DaVarryl “Touch of Sleep” Williamson was nice enough to speak with Boxingtalk.com before he left NYC to give us his thoughts on his performance. “It was a unanimous decision but you know it was a very competitive fight” stated the heavy handed contender who now fights out of Denver, Colorado. Read on to see what else he had to say about fighting at the Mecca of Boxing, Madison Square Garden, his contractual obligations to Don King, and his take on the four televised Heavyweight bouts that took place after his.

RC: DaVarryl, your fight wasn’t shown on the HBO PPV telecast Saturday night, but you were the first heavyweight bout of the evening that those on hand at the garden witnessed. Why don’t you give us a run down of how the fight played out?

DW: From I have been hearing and reading from websites and making the phone calls to who was tuned in, they did show about a ten second blurb of myself and Oliver McCall, so they did show that a little bit of it. To me the fight wasn’t hard, it was a tough fight, but it wasn’t like a war or anything like that. I felt I controlled the fight the entire time with my jab. I threw a lot of different punches from my arsenal so to say, I used the upper cut, I don’t know how effective it was, but I showed it to him so at least he had that to worry about. Obviously I threw the right hand, I threw the left hook to the body, I threw the left hook to the head, so I gave him a mixture of punches to make sure he wasn’t so sure if he can just run in there and worry about one particular punch that would hurt him or get his attention. I think he was a very durable guy, I think he got in the best shape of his life to withstand this, but I definitely take my hat off to Oliver McCall because it was a very good competitive fight.

RC: Were you pleased with your performance?

DW: Absolutely, I am very pleased because each round, I had my trainer George Durbin and my two assistant trainers Andre Wilson and Dwight Redd, both who are painfully honest about things, and they were saying “Hey DaVarryl you are doing good, I like that round” or “You need a little bit more punches here or a little bit more punches there” and  “You are boxing beautiful, keep it up” Those kind of comments, because the guys are truthful and honest with me, when I am hearing this, I feel like everything is going the way we wanted it to go. Whether they would have taken it from me with the decision or something like that, it doesn’t bother me, as long as my corner was happy with each round. And the response that I was getting from my corner during my one minute rest was positive; it was very good so I knew we were doing the right thing

RC: The scores were kind of close 96-94 twice and 97-94 all in favor of you, were you comfortable with those scores?

DW: It was a unanimous decision but you know it was a very competitive fight, it wasn’t a tough fight in terms of…...I didn’t think it was that close. I thought I won at least 7-3 rounds hands down. But who knows, maybe they felt I should have done more or he should have down more, he is 39 years old, but remember no guy has even put him on the seat of his pants. This guy is tough; he is going to take punishment and punishment. I didn’t take the risk that maybe I would have taken against somebody else who I felt I cold have knocked out, but I hit him enough to keep him from coming in, and I kept boxing. I was very very consistent with my jab and my movement, and I was very happy with the outcome. At the end of the day, I was the winner, and I won a unanimous decision, whether it was 10-0, 9-1, 8-2 it was a win, and I am very happy with my win and hopefully the rankings will reflect that.

RC: After your most recent disappointing loss to (Wladimir)Klitschko, did you feel as if you had to come back six weeks later to make a statement against a tough opponent, I can remember going into your last fight you were extremely motivated, and despite you loosing many felt as if you were coming on strong and some even felt at the time of the stoppage you were ahead, did you feel as if you had to come back so soon to sort of redeem yourself and let the people know you aren’t going anywhere?

DW: Well I wouldn’t say I had to come back; I just love the fact that I had the opportunity to come back so soon. I told my team, Kevin Mullowney, my publicist, my managers and everybody that I wanted to fight before the end of the year.  I didn’t want to put too much pressure on him and my team. But I got a very good meaningful fight, I mean I really wanted my wife and everyone to at least go see these fights, and see this card, because it was a fight that we needed to be at. Luckily, and fortunately I got a call asking if I wanted to be on the card and it worked out where the numbers matched and Oliver McCall was the opponent. When you get a chance to showcase your talent in front of the WBA, the IBF, the WBC, the WBO and all of those sanctioning bodies, it is a good thing, now when they go to the ranking committee and someone ask about DaVarryl Williamson, it is a sweet taste in their mouth because they just saw me. 

RC: After your last fight with Klitschko did you get to take a break at all, or was it...

DW: (Cutting in) Yeah obviously I took my little week and half, two week break and because I am always in such good shape Ray, because I always keep busy. Like I am looking forward to….I’m playing in a men’s adult league basketball, I have a game on Tuesday, so I am looking forward to playing that, because I am not going to do anything (As far as boxing) for the rest of the year. So I can play in these next three or four games and hopefully we will win the championship, so I am looking forward to that, and staying busy. I will be in the gym at least three times a week just moving around, I just want to keep an edge. If you have an edge, you want to kind of stay on it so that you can go to the next level. If you sit back, you got to work so hard to get to the level that you just left from, and then to get back you have to go a little further. I mean I really had fun Saturday night, and I am not taking anything away from McCall, I enjoyed it, he was a game fighter. He didn’t show us any surprises, he was as strong as an Ox like we knew he would be, he is just a rugged guy, he likes it rough. We did everything we wanted, when we got good punches in, we didn’t get greedy. Because once you get greedy then you take a risk, we didn’t do that. We would get out of there and start again, reset, jab to the body jab to the head. Quick one two, move, move and when he comes toward me, sometimes I let him come in, sometimes I hit him with a hook, sometimes I do this, and then a hook to the body. I mean we had fun, it was like the sweet science in its rare form last night, in very rare form and I felt really good.

RC: Did you feel any differently fighting again so quickly, since you haven’t fought so close in between fights in such a long time, did you feel any differently? Any better any worse?

DW: I think I felt a little better; the only thing that really was a damper is that I didn’t have time to warm up. When we put the gloves on, the commission came in the room and said hey, we are walking. And I was like we are walking where? They led us to believe we would not fight before 8:00pm and we would not fight after 8:05 meaning that we had that five minute window. So we were just starting to get ready, my coach had just put the tape on my gloves. I was stretching and started to let my arms go a little bit and they said “We are walking”, I mean he didn’t come in the room and say hey…..well normally you get a little countdown like five minutes, they would usually say “You got five minutes” or “you got eight minutes” or whatever.  They didn’t give us any warning; they just came in the room. I mean I know they are under pressure but somebody had to kind of stay close, but we dealt with it. I was thinking to myself Oliver McCall is probably going through the exact same thing.

RC: Do you feel as if you didn’t fight six weeks ago, you probably wouldn’t have fought so well?

DW: I don’t know about that, I am a guy Ray that really enjoys boxing and really like to stay busy. The more fights I get, the more confident, the more creative, and the more skillful I become. So I would like to fight often, the more often I fight, the better off I am. I was very lucky, and fortunate to get out of that Klitschko fight with no real injuries, no real bruises so that I could get myself prepared for a fight like I did for this one with Oliver McCall.

RC: How did it feel to fight in the world’s most famous arena Madison Square Garden?

DW: It was wonderful man, Wonderful. Absolutely Wonderful! I mean I didn’t get star struck or my eyes stuck on the ceiling, but I felt it. I was feeling the Garden; obviously this is something every guy wants to do. I mean I was able to fight in the Garden, well kind of like an Annex, when I fought in the theater for the goodwill games. But it wasn’t like it was Saturday night. I also went there to a fight when Tito Trinidad fought William Joppy and Chris Byrd was fighting Maurice Harris, and I was a part of that because I was a part of the Chris Byrd camp, I got a chance to taste it a little bit. So I was able to brace myself and say I am here, I am so glad I had that experience because if not I would have been looking around like I am crazy, but I was able to say hey I been here before.

RC: Prior to the Klitschko fight I remember you telling me that that fight was going to be your last fight that you were contractually obligated to Warriors Boxing, then you happen to take a  fight on a Don King promoted card, who happens to promote three out of the four current Heavyweight world champions by no accident I am sure, what’s good with you and Don?

DW: Once again it is kind of like rolling the dice, with warriors boxing we had our last contractual commitment with Wladimir Klitschko fight, we wanted to win and we were hoping some promoter would show up with a bag of money or whatever. So then I say ok, never mind the bag of money, lets just get a good situation that is going to get my in a position to where I can get closer to being the heavyweight champion of the world. Don King is almost a no brainer because he has three of the four heavyweight champion of the world; he also has the number one guy in the WBC for that belt so we are excited about it. We don’t just want to take anything, we want to get with him but we didn’t want to just take anything. We want to get an honest day pay for an honest days work.

RC: So what is the status right now with you and Don King?

DW: We have one fight with him, which is an option. Where Don King would give me one more fight before March 31st of 2005. However I am hoping to reach a promotional agreement and we can tear that contract up on both parties and go into a promotional agreement between sometime after Thanksgiving, but before Christmas.

I think I past my audition Saturday night, I mean it was pretty much an audition. He said “Show me what you got” and he put the toughest guy he could in front of me and said “ If you can get past this guy, then I will sit down at the table with you” So I am looking forward to sitting at the table with him.

RC: Sounds good, maybe you might get a chance to go again on his March card featuring Felix Trinidad at…

DW: (Cutting in) It sure would be nice. I mean I just want to be, I want my next fight to be meaningful fight. Whether it is a piece of the heavyweight championship, or some sort of elimination bout that would put me in the heavyweight championship before July, and I think Don can make it happen. I think Don King and DaVarryl Williamson we can be a success, well Don King was successful without me, but I feel like he can give me a piece of that, and that is not only financially but I am also talking about a piece of hardware, like that belt around my waist.

RC: Give us on your thoughts on the other televised fights which took place after yours on Saturday night?

DW: I thought it was a very good card. The fights went the way I thought they would, but I am not so sure about the last fight with Andrew Golota and John Ruiz, I thought
Andrew Golota won that fight.

Chris Byrd, I knew that he was going to be that way with Jameel McCline, I was happy to see Rahman back, and energetic. I wasn’t so sure which Rahman we were going to see, and he hustled for this one. He really made a statement with Stopping Kali Meehan. Kali Meehan would probably fall considerably out of the rankings, and hopefully myself or Larry Donald will replace him.

Larry Donald looked sharp; I mean he beat Evander Holyfield at least 11-1 in rounds. He looked like he was sharp. Like I said man, I was just honored to be on the card, I was honored to be in the same arena and further more they let me get a piece of the pie on stage as the warm up act or whatever you want to call it, the appetizer  before the entrée.

RC: It’s obvious you have a great deal of respect for all of the fighters that fought Saturday night, but business is business, to get that piece of hardware you just mentioned is their anyone in particular that won on that card, that you would like to face next?

DW: You know what? Ideally, maybe who knows? I would fight them all; I just want that opportunity that everybody else had with the heavyweight championship of the world. It could be a John Ruiz, it could be a Chris Byrd, it could be a Lamon Brewster who was in the arena, and it could be the winner of Danny Williams and (Vitali) Klitschko. Who knows, I mean I want one of them and I am just hungry man, so it doesn’t really matter. I think that I have the goods that will be victorious over any of them.

RC: Is there anything else you would like to say in closing?

DW: Man we are always thanking the fans man for checking out Boxingtalk.com as well as TOSBoxing.com and thanks for keeping the faith and believing in me. For those who were able to tune in and see the ten seconds, ten seconds is better than no seconds. I don’t think they gave anybody else 10 seconds on the whole card (The under card), so I feel very happy about it, whether Roy Jones Jr. and Jim Lampley thought it should have been a split decision or not. And I appreciate Larry Merchant for sticking up for me, because he thought I won the fight hands down. A lot of times he is the most critical and he saw me winning.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE OF THIS EXCLUSIVE

Send questions and comments to: rayocampbelljr@hotmail.com