Williams vs Ishida Weigh-In Photos: Williams 153½, Ishida 155

by Scott Christ on Feb 17, 2012 7:14 PM EST in Boxing Photo Galleries

Paul Williams faces Nobuhiro Ishida tomorrow on Showtime. (Photo by Sumio Yamada/Goossen Tutor Promotions)

Tomorrow night's Showtime Championship Boxing main event will be a 12-round contest in the junior middleweight division, pitting former two-division titlist Paul Williams against Japan's Nobuhiro Ishida. No titles are on the line, as this is a fight for Williams (40-2, 27 KO) to prove himself again against Ishida (24-6-2, 9 KO).

Today, the fighters weighed in, with Williams coming in at 153½ and Ishida at 155.

For Williams, as Kory Kitchen said in a preview of the fight, this is a chance for he and the viewing audience to gauge what he's got left. He looked pretty lousy last year in a robbery win over Erislandy Lara, and whether he and his team admit it or not, there are major flaws in his game, which were also exposed by Sergio Martinez, and not just in his KO of the Year win in late 2010, either. Martinez was able to land the same shot repeatedly in their first fight, one year prior.

(Photo by Sumio Yamada/Goossen Tutor Promotions)

If the 36-year-old Ishida, a decent boxer but far from true world class, gives Williams a lot of trouble, then we know for certain that Paul Williams has lost some steps. Ishida really should not give Williams a big test, but as I said before, he has the tools to do so if Williams is really over the hill in the ring. He's tall, he's fundamentally sound, and he's not a stupid fighter.

(Photo by Sumio Yamada/Goossen Tutor Promotions)

Williams vs Ishida is live tomorrow night on Showtime at 10 p.m. EST, with Cloud vs Campillo as the co-feature. The full night of action starts on Showtime Extreme at 8 pm. EST, featuring Chris Arreola vs Eric Molina.

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I am, I wouldn’t say

morbidly

, curious about this, but I am, well, curious.

Part of me has to be talked out of the growing conviction that Williams is now a promising also-ran who just never fulfilled that promise, and so anything less than a blow-out, will be bad news. On the other hand, a blow-out to me won’t prove anything if it happens.

Ishida won a massive lottery against Kirkland that no one even knew was being played. I thought he looked like a stack of twigs up until the moment he nailed Kirkland. I keep trying to imagine how he might manage to beat Williams, and I can’t think of one. If that happens, somehow, what it means will depend to me on how it happened, and what it looked like.

I do want to see this, though. But it’s not morbid curiosity. Not at all.

Just when ideas fail, words crop up.
--- Goethe, Faust

by DrRck on Feb 17, 2012 7:42 PM EST reply actions