If there were any doubters about the ability of Paul Williams coming into his fight with the returning Winky Wright, there shouldn’t be any now. The middleweight version of Williams dominated and essentially shut out the cagey veteran Wright, winning a wide unanimous decision and proving himself one of the top middleweights in boxing and one of the top fighters, pound-for-pound, in the world.
Wright was coming off the longest layoff of his career at 21 months, but, prior to his hiatus from the sport, he had been a top ten fighter, pound-for-pound, and the number two fighter in the world as recently as 2006. In his last outing in 2007, he fought Bernard Hopkins close but not quite close enough to complain. While close, and sometimes disputable losses had been the only blemishes on his record beforehand, Wright was thoroughly dominated by Williams, leaving no question who was the better fighter in this instance.
Fighting in his fourth different weight class in as many fights, Williams began the fight trading jabs with his fellow southpaw. After catching some combinations with his gloves, Wright mustered a grin at his younger opponent, but Williams was doing all the early damage by landing left hands to the head and body. Winky did have the best two punches of the round – a big right hook and left hand – after getting Williams to trade with him, but Williams far outworked his opponent and took the first, action-packed round. Already, Williams had sent the message that Wright’s peek-a-boo style of fighting was not going to be enough to stop a man who planned on throwing twice as many punches.
It was Williams who came out grinning for the second round and tore into Wright with a right hook around the glove, followed by one to the body, and back up to the head again. He added a ripping left shortly thereafter. When Wright tried to answer with a combination, Williams cracked him with another big left over that doubled Wright over, where he caught another combination. A body shot and a left across the face followed, then a hard uppercut through Wright’s gloves as he tried to cover up. A desperate Wright tried to hold and hit but took another uppercut before backing off and nodding to Williams. Wright later scored with a right hook, but Williams countered with a hellacious uppercut that lifted Wright’s head straight up. Somehow, the tough Wright took the shot and kept coming forward.
If Wright won a round in the fight, it came in the third. Williams was well in control after the first minute and a half, but Wright started finding a way to land punches when Williams finished his combinations. He scored with a straight right-left combination with about a minute left, but Williams was quick to answer with a three-punch volley of his own. In round four, Williams slammed in a hard right hook that turned Wright’s head. From there, he pushed Wright back into the ropes, pounding in combinations to the head and body while Wright played defense. Wright got in some licks when the battle moved to the center of the ring, but Williams simply didn’t let up. The exchanges continued early into round five until Wright held on for a breather. Referee Joe Cortez called for a break, but Williams took the opportunity to swing one arm up around the other and smack Winky with an uppercut in a bizarre demonstration of his length.
Whereas Roy Jones Jr. and Bernard Hopkins tried their hardest not to engage the younger pressure fighter Joe Calzaghe in their respective fights with the Welshman last year, Wright came to fight the similarly styled Williams and stood his ground, even while taking a beating at times. He took some hard right hooks to the mouth to open the sixth round but kept swinging back. Whenever Williams took his foot off the gas, Wright immediately jumped on the offensive, trying to take advantage wherever possible and proved why he is so respected a fighter. Williams faked with the jab and snapped Wright’s head back with a straight left through the gloves to punctuate another dominant round in spite of Wright’s heart.
The Las Vegas crowd tried lifting Wright with chants of “Winky” early in the seventh to no avail. The fight continued to go Williams’ way, and Wright’s face was reddening from the blows. A “let’s go, Winky” chant in the eighth also failed to change the pattern of the fight, but it had to be refreshing for the former undisputed Junior Middleweight Champion to know his work was being appreciated, even if the fight was becoming increasingly one-sided. Williams meanwhile moved in and hammered Wright with a left-right combination that knocked Wright’s head away. Wright covered up in an effort to block the right hooks that followed on the side of his head, so Williams mixed in some to the body as well. With a minute to go in the round, Wright had stopped throwing completely and was just doing his best to take as little damage as possible as he covered up.
A tiring Wright held onto Williams to stop the onslaught in round nine, but that only prompted Williams to blast him with six unanswered left hands to the head. Wright shook his head as if to complain, but Williams stepped back and banged in a right hook for good measure. With his back against the ropes literally and figuratively, Wright leaned into Williams and ate a big left hand across the face. It was the same story in the center of the ring, where Williams landed a crushing one-two to the face of Wright, who stayed upright and kept going, even after taking a monstrous right hook across the face moments later.
Williams rushed out of the corner to begin the tenth and immediately engaged Wright, who was more than willing to oblige his younger, tireless opponent, and both men got some great shots in on one another, with neither budging. Williams quickly took over with a ten-punch combination, including a straight left, an uppercut and a right hook to the body that all landed flush. Nine rounds in at his incredible pace, Williams was sticking his tongue out and laughing, not disrespectfully but in a way that suggested he was having fun, all of this while throwing his fight-high punch output of 105 punches thrown in the round. With two rounds remaining, Wright’s trainer Dan Birmingham told his charge the truth: that he needed a knockout to win.
Wright gave it his best shot over the last two rounds but came into the fight without the knockout power Birmingham was asking for. Amid a six-punch combination in round twelve, Williams scored with a jarring right-left combination to the head. Wright answered with his own combinations inside as they went to war, but Williams fired back with a left around the glove, followed by an uppercut between the gloves that snapped Wright’s head straight up. A five-punch combination found Wright’s head, but Wright answered back with a big left on Williams. When the final bell sounded, Wright had pinned Williams on the ropes to get him to stop throwing, and Williams embraced and congratulated him on a good fight – one of the more entertaining shutouts ever seen. The scoring was academic as one judge had it a shutout while the other two had found a round to give to Winky along the way.
Williams is a three-division fighter, competing at welterweight, junior middleweight and now middleweight, and is undoubtedly one of the top three fighters in each of those classes. As long as he can make the weight, he’s probably the best welterweight in the world but moved up to the higher divisions when he failed to land a big fight after beating up Antonio Margarito, who likely fought him with loaded gloves, and destroying Carlos Quintana in one round in their rematch. The junior middleweight division is just now becoming a weight class worth watching, meaning Williams has opportunities there against the HBO-groomed James Kirkland and Alfredo Angulo. Williams would be favored over either.
The real question is whether Williams can hang with fellow big punchers Kelly Pavlik and Arthur Abraham should he continue to campaign as a middleweight. One would think that after standing up to the loaded gloves of Margarito that Williams could handle anything, but Pavlik and Abraham are much bigger and stronger than anyone Williams has ever taken on. When it’s all said and done, Williams may never have to find out since Pavlik and Abraham finally appear to be heading toward a long-overdue showdown, after which Abraham, if not Pavlik too, will move up to super middleweight.
Williams has already defeated two opponents that it seemed nobody wanted to fight, Margarito and Wright, and he completely outclassed both of them. Whoever accepts a fight with his next time out, especially anyone under 160 pounds, deserves all the respect in the world.
ARREOLA LAYS WASTE TO McCLINE
On the undercard, undefeated heavyweight contender Chris Arreola got the biggest win of his career when he took a drastic leap in class to fight perennial contender but never titlist Jameel McCline. Despite giving Arreola a tough round three, McCline, who was returning from a 2008 retirement, folded as usual when the going got tough and quit after tasting the canvas in the fourth round.
Arreola targeted McCline’s bulging belly to begin the fight and stunned McCline with a right hand upstairs near the end of the first round. McCline scored with a good right-left combination to Arreola’s head in the second round, but Arreola quickly came back, attacking the body. He later knocked McCline’s head back into the ropes with a straight right hand. Referee Tony Weeks came to a gassed McCline’s corner between rounds and urged McCline to stop holding.
McCline’s best round came in the action-packed third when he responded to an assault from Arreola with an uppercut and a left hook, briefly buckling Arreola’s legs and stunning the Mexican-American. Arreola looked to be on the way to winning the round on activity, scoring with his own uppercut near the end of the round, before McCline answered with another uppercut that again buckled Arreola’s knees, followed by a left hook before the bell.
Arreola responded like a champion in the fourth round, chopping away at the bigger McCline with right hands and body shots. A beautiful three-punch combination saw Arreola score with a left hook, an uppercut and a straight right through the gloves that snapped McCline’s head back. Honing in for the kill, Arreola slammed home a big time uppercut, followed by a straight right to the head that sent McCline staggering sideways and stumbling to the canvas on his side. McCline lay on his side, completely conscious of his whereabouts, but allowed Weeks to count to eight before attempting to stand, opting out of the fight rather than take any more punishment. Weeks counted him out, and Arreola scored the biggest, most impressive win of his career.
Arreola continues to improve, but there was more than plenty of room for improvement since his last fight against Travis Walker. While it appears he’s going to be fed to one of the Klitschko Brothers within the year, Arreola would be wise to wait. McCline is generally considered a durable fighter and thus a good test, but he was coming off a retirement and lost convincingly to John Ruiz a year ago. Unless Arreola’s management is afraid of a fellow contender taking the Mexican-American out first, then the right move is to match him with the likes of other challengers first. Fres Oquendo would be a quality opponent, and then Tony Thompson, who would get him ready for a Klitschko’s height. To face Wladimir at this point would be a poor move if Arreola hopes to have any staying power in the division; to face Vitali, downright suicide. McCline’s career, it’s safe to say, is over as far as relevant fights are concerned.
