The charismatic Paul Williams appeared in his pre-fight interview with his shades and a smile, looking cool and sounding confident.  He looked like the Dave Chappelle character “Tron”; I kept expecting him to answer a question by pleading the fif, f-i-f fif.  He was able to carry that cool and confidence to the ring, where he was to face the biggest challenge of his career, his first world championship fight against tough guy and welterweight WBO champ Antonio Margarito.  Margarito was making his eighth defense of a title he won and defended not so much with skill, but by will. 

 

Margarito always fussed how he was the most feared man in boxing, unable to secure a bout with the big names in the welterweight division.  He longed for a fight that would earn him the respect of the boxing community.  Well, as you all should know by now, Margarito fell short against Williams. 

 

Williams got to it as soon as the first bell rang, firing combinations behind a quick jab that resembled a poker dealer slinging cards.  Williams kept his distance and was able to tie up (mostly in the first half of the fight) when Margarito found his way inside.  Also important to Williams was his movement, as he was able to force Margarito to either reset and attack or throw off balance punches, by constantly circling and with upper body movement.  By blending movement with effective high punch output, Williams was able to befuddle Margarito for the most part.  Although Margarito made it competitive, Williams never let Margarito take control.  Even in the tenth and eleventh round, where it seemed Margarito was hurting Williams and closing the margin on the scorecards, Williams reached deep down took the twelfth, boxing as he had been in the early rounds.  A testament to the heart of Williams, as Margarito’s greatest asset is his grit. 

 

Now Williams carries clout in the welterweight division, but I don’t think we’ll hear any of the top-shelf guys calling him out.  He is gifted with extraordinary height and reach to go along with his solid chin and fighters’ heart.  Not to mention he has proven he can go twelve hard ones with a tough champ.  Unfortunately for Williams, these gifts carry a curse.  The curse being that he may be too good, falling in the dreaded high risk, low reward category – as Margarito had before him.  

 
Where does that leave Margarito?

He could try for a rematch, being that he didn’t concede defeat to Williams and Williams may have a tough time getting a big fight.  It also seemed he gave away some early rounds and was still able to convince some respected scribes he did enough to win. With that said, I believe a rematch would lead us to the same conclusion; Williams’ length, movement, speed and volume punching seems a foil to Margarito’s wide swinging pressure.

M

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