Sergio Martinez-Paul Williams rematch nearly set for Nov. 20
by Scott Christ on Aug 13, 2010 5:57 PM EDT
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Lem Satterfield of FanHouse reports that a November 20 rematch between Sergio Martinez and Paul Williams is "basically done," according to his sources.
The two met last December in a thrilling slugfest that garnered serious Fight of the Year consideration, stunning because nobody expected the sort of war they put on, and also because Martinez was a late replacement for then-middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik, who pulled out of a date with Williams for the second time in 2009. Williams narrowly beat Martinez, but then Martinez went on to dethrone Pavlik in April, while Williams was rocky in a fight at 154 against Kermit Cintron on May 8.
Both men and their camps waited to see what would happen with Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. before arriving at this point. Martinez had been talked about as a potential opponent for Mayweather, but it never became that serious. Williams was never considered by either camp, though he and his team made sure to keep their name alive in the discussion by saying Pacquiao and Mayweather were afraid of him.
With no one left to fight (Pavlik declined a rematch with Martinez, too), they now turn to the most logical destination all along: Each other.
Martinez (45-2-2, 24 KO) is currently one of the hottest names in the sport past the Big Two, and Williams (39-1, 27 KO) is no slouch himself. HBO badly wanted the fight, as all fight fans who saw their first encounter did, as well. There feels like unfinished business between Martinez and Tall Paul, and without each other, it's difficult to figure who they'd fight next, and highly unlikely that it would pay as well or draw as much interest from the networks.
With the fight coming on November 20, it will also be positioned as the live partner fight to the Pacquiao-Margarito replay, which usually guarantees more eyeballs than normal, so it's a good position for everyone involved. A site for the fight has yet to be worked out. Their first bout was in Atlantic City.
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PAUL WILLIAMS
Paul does not have an easy fight when he climbs in the ring with Martinez. Martinez will probably prevail. This should be a great match up.
Looking forward to this one
Now that Martinez has the title (and will get more benefit of the doubt from the judges – don’t pretend that doesn’t exist), I suspect he’ll win this one. Williams’s flaws are becoming more and more apparent, and Martinez has the perfect style to exploit them.
Bad Left Hook - The SB Nation boxing blog
"Baseball is played on the field, not on a calculator."
So psyched.
Although I sure hope Williams has more available than he showed in that pitiful aborted Cintron fight—we could generously say it was just a slow start. I thought Williams edged the first Martinez fight the first time I saw it, but on second viewing, I appreciated better just how cleanly Martinez was hitting.
This is unlike most rematches in that, though as per standard, the guy who won the original has to be favored strongly in the return, in this case, the guy who won the first didn’t win the first. Sorta like RJJ-Tarver II.
Not the one I wanted,
but who can complain about this?
Honestly they’d be best off doing it in AC again, I think. Those fans know they got their money’s worth, plus the people who watched on TV in the surrounding area might be excited enough to go live this time. Neither of them has any fanbase anywhere anyway, and AC is a crowd willing to get behind “transplant” fighters who entertain like Gatti or Pavlik.
Bad Left Hook
"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day..."
Make it happen please.
With this and the 118lb tourney the schedule will be looking very reasonable and it is likely i will stop moaning about how shitty boxing is becoming.
Just one or two pretty big fights still needed though we are going to have to wait till next year at the earliest for them.
Come on Haye,come on Floyd stop being prima donna’s and act like fighters for once.
Also hopefully Donaire v Montiel for the years end and Bradley v Alexander very likely for the New Year.
Yes,at last there are some top level,extremely competitive fights being made outside the Super6.
However none of these are official yet so maybe i’m getting a bit carried away.We know there is much more talking about big fights happening in boxing than fights actually happening. :)
Bradley-Alexander seems like it’s about 95% done. Alexander having a questionable performance against Kotelnik probably helped us get that fight, actually. Now Devon feels like he has something to prove again, Bradley and Shaw are more confident than ever of a win, and everyone involved probably sees how narrowly they avoided missing out on Bradley-Alexander being a major fight for both guys on HBO, and aren’t willing to risk missing it on something like that again. And it is still a really good fight.
Montiel-Donaire is apparently a serious discussion but that one I’ll believe when I see it actually signed and promoted.
Bad Left Hook
"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day..."
by Scott Christ on Aug 14, 2010 3:08 AM EDT up reply actions
this year has been pretty crap, but hey we were spoiled with the izzy-rafy trilogy from 08-09
Texans 19-0 in 2010-2011 season PERIOD
by battle axe of doom on Aug 14, 2010 2:00 AM EDT up reply actions
I think this year has been solid, but a a number of things have made it seem worse.
1. The two best fights of the year, by my tally, are Daniel Estrada-Angel Alirio Rivero and Antonio Escalante-Mickey Roman. Almost nobody saw these fights. There has been a lack of great fights.
2. The two mega PPV events were both snoozers.
3. The Mayweather-Pacquiao drama has dominated the year, and we’re talking about the dominant story being a fight that hasn’t happened and, as of this time, is not happening, and will not be signed before year’s end.
4. There have been big lulls in big-time boxing. HBO aired a grand total of three fights (Luevano-Lopez, Gamboa-Mtagwa and Alexander-Urango) before the 3/13 Pacquiao-Clottey PPV. Major boxing on U.S. TV has been spotty.
5. The European year has been slower and weaker than usual, too.
The sport is in a holding pattern, really. Nobody’s really broken out. There hasn’t been an exceptional major fight (Pavlik-Martinez and Froch-Kessler were quite good, but not the type of thing you tell your friends they have to see). And boxing in 2010 has been centered on a non-fight.
Bad Left Hook
"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day..."
by Scott Christ on Aug 14, 2010 3:04 AM EDT up reply actions
I'm going to go against the grain early and clearly
and call a surprisingly dominant win for tall Paul.
I think some of you underestimate his ring intelligence and ability to adjust from a loss. Also I think his extraordinary athleticism, even at the higher weight, is also being taken for granted at this point.
And I suspect there is a little bit of an internet echo-chamber ra-ra thing going on right now for Martinez. Pavlik looked almost as bad against him as Urango did against Devon Alexander, imho.
Boxing writer: "Iran, what are you going to do when you retire?"
Iran Barkley: "Rob your house"
I’ll counter-point a little. I truly believe Martinez is just a better overall boxer than Williams is at this point. He’s smarter, uses his natural talents better, and I think he’s a better puncher, too, despite their KO rates not bearing that out. Paul Williams is really good, but I think Martinez is the exact right guy to always give him serious problems. I just hope it’s another good fight, though. I like both guys a lot and they both deserve the big fights. That the big fight comes against each other, and was so great the first time, is just a bonus for us all.
I also thought more of Pavlik’s performance against Sergio than you did, but then I am part of the minority that still thinks he has a good career left if he makes some changes (some major, some minor). Pavlik made some good adjustments mid-fight, but Sergio was just better than him and did eventually sap his will and strength a little bit.
Or, perhaps I thought Urango looked even worse than you felt he did. That could be it, too. Or a combination of both. I thought Urango was awful in that fight.
Bad Left Hook
"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day..."
by Scott Christ on Aug 14, 2010 5:43 AM EDT up reply actions
In retrospect I was probably exaggerating a bit regarding the Urango/Pavlik comparison.
But I still feel like this will be Williams’ fight.
As a disclaimer, I should add that I had Williams winning a little wider than most in his last fight with Martinez.
Boxing writer: "Iran, what are you going to do when you retire?"
Iran Barkley: "Rob your house"
Matt Miller
You make some good points and you could be right however i believe Pavlik was fighting a pretty good fight against Sergio until he got cut.
As far as the ra-ra stuff goes,i can honestly say that does not apply to me.I was more impressed with Martinez in the first Williams fight than i was the Pavlik one,though i thought he fought smart,fought the fight he needed to against Pav.
Martinez had first caught my attention when he came to the UK to fight Richard Williams back in 2003.This British prospect was 17-1-1 at the time and although never likely to make world class,he was quite highly regarded over here and had beat men like Shannon Taylor and Paul Samuels.
Martinez pretty much had his way in the first fight and stopped Williams in the rematch.
I never caught the Antonio Margarito loss previous to these fights but the next time i saw Martinez was against Alex Bunema and although i didn’t care for his showboating style,i could see he had improved and i was quite impressed.
Of course he then suffered the draw that should have been a KO win against Cintron(who Williams looked to be struggling with last time out) and next came the Paul Williams fight.
The main thing that Martinez has to do,imo,is get his stamina and fitness levels as high as possible because Williams is gonna bring that constant pressure,if he’s at his best.
I believe he can catch the relentlessly attacking Williams with them sweet,flush counters as he did last time and (if the there are no idiots like Benoit on the judging panel) we will see him take the points win in another close one.
To be honest i always thought Williams was a bit overrated until he fought Winky Wright and Martinez and i changed my mind.I think it will always be a close fight between these two and i scored it 115-114 Williams the first time but i noted that quite a few of them rounds that went to Williams could easily have gone the other way and vice versa.
It was an extremely close fight and i just hope the rematch is every bit as entertaining as i think it will be.Remember though,Williams did not seem keen on taking this and only seems to be doing so because he has no other options whereas Martinez has been calling for it for a while now.
I don’t know what I think about this particular fight, but I do think that Williams is going to have a relatively short prime. He has a very good chin, but he takes a lot of clean shots in just about every fight he fights. Sooner or later it will catch up to him, and when it happens it will seem very surprising.
Good post.
You make some very good points, and I appreciated your description of some of Martinez’s earlier fights.
I’m sticking with my call, however. I think Williams will make some good adjustments, using his length more effectively, and his workrate will see him through.
Boxing writer: "Iran, what are you going to do when you retire?"
Iran Barkley: "Rob your house"
Re:Martinez' stamina.
Some said that he faded in the last few rounds against Williams but,while at times in the fight he did look like he was feeling Williams’ pace a bit,i don’t agree that he was in any trouble.
Looking back at my scorecard here i had Martinez winning rds 10 and 12 so no i’m not buying that he was flagging.
In rounds i had it 6-5-1 even to Williams.
I just think he knows what is required for the rematch and will prevail.
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