Paul Williams gets bizarre win over Kermit Cintron

Williams has been at once horribly mismanaged and…well, like you said, just isn’t a media type. He never built a local fanbase anywhere. I mean you don’t have to do it at home. I understand South Carolina and Georgia aren’t boxing hotbeds, but look at Atlantic City. They adopted Arturo Gatti, an Italian-Canadian, then Pavlik from Ohio, and I think Sergio Martinez of Argentina is looking like he’s going to do very well there, too. He was exciting against Williams and did his thing against Pavlik. He won’t be Gatti (no one’s going to be Gatti in AC), but it’s a nice place to have as a base. Williams has never gotten that.

He’s fought a lot in California, but not consistently during the meaningful part of his career. He beat Margarito in California, Quintana beat him in California in a surprising, pretty good fight, and the rematch winds up in Connecticut. Then back to Cali for “eh” fights with Kolle and Phillips, then to Vegas to face Ronnie Wright, then to Jersey for Martinez (was supposed to be Pavlik, I know) and now back to California to face…Cintron, who had fought in California once and himself has no following. If I’m Goossen Tutor and DiBella, maybe I try to put him back in AC for the Cintron fight. Kermit was based in PA for years, and Williams’ last fight, though not a great draw, drew tremendous acclaim. But nope. Home Depot Center.

I don’t think Williams is ever going to capture imaginations, though. He’s a real good fighter, but in terms of marketability, he doesn’t have an X-factor anywhere. I mean, what’s his hook? He’s tall.

Mayweather can talk and is flashy as hell. Pacquiao was brought along in a sense with MYSTERIOUS FOREIGNER! aspect at first and then built his audience fighting the great Mexican warriors (gaining many Mexican fans along the way) and then in the long run, wound up a phenom because of his fighting style, which continually developed. The Mexicans and Puerto Ricans have great built-in audiences, but there’s also something cool, I usually find, about their biggest stars. Even Margarito just kinda looks like a cool badass dude. Cotto had that steely glare about him at his best, a “hitman” sort of look. Trinidad was cool, Morales and Barrera effectively split a great audience, JMM had the hook of being the guy whose hard work finally paid off. Oscar drew a female and teenage audience into the sport that had been missing.

You know what one of my recent favorites was? Fernando Vargas positioning himself as the anti-Oscar despite their great similarities. Both were California born and bred. Oscar had his stupid singing career, Fernando had his stupid clothing line. I mean it’s not like either of them was a new Julio Cesar Chavez, but Vargas successfully convinced people he was the man’s man and Oscar was a wimp and not a real Mexican.

Williams is just a really good, American fighter with no hook. He’s tall. That’s about all I can think of. He’s not a great talker, and he’s not a trash talker either. I respect that he hasn’t forced himself to be who he isn’t, though. He’s kind of like Mosley, except I won’t say he’s as good as Mosley was at his peak (or real close to it, IMO). Mosley had a lot of great things about him, but he just never was the big star, and he got better chances than Paul has so far.