Paul Williams searches for the head of Winky Wright during their middleweight clash on Saturday. Rumor has it that due to Winky's massive gloves, Williams didn't discover his opponent actually had a head until midway through the second round.This week’s big thoughts from a strawweight brain:
1. Paul brings the punishment
For the longest time, the debate raged on between fight fans: Who was the most avoided fighter, Antonio Margarito or Paul Williams? Consider that question finally answered, and it has nothing to do with any art-school materials finding their way into Margarito’s gloves. Williams outworked, outhit, and generally out-everythinged former pound-for-pound entrant Winky Wright during their middleweight clash last Saturday. Although Wright was coming off a nearly two-year layoff, he certainly had never been beaten up like this before. Williams threw an astounding 1,086 punches (yes, you read that right), and given the odds of even just a few of them landing, he was going to hit Winky a lot before the fight was over. And even though Wright did land some good punches also, the fight was never in doubt past the fifth round or so.
Now, as good as Williams is, I can’t imagine who’d ever want to fight him. See, the problem is not only that Williams is 6’3” and awesome, it’s also that he’s not much of a draw. Word is that only about 2,000 tickets were sold for the fight, and that Mandalay Bay was practically giving them away before fight time. Williams is great, but he has the personality of a bowl of cold tomato soup. Even the pre-fight story aired on HBO tried to choke some charisma out of Williams and failed miserably, even though his back story was quite interesting. Couple that together with Wright, who never has exactly carried a promotion, and you have a bunch of people disguised as empty seats. Paul “The Punisher” may have to hook up with a Ricardo Mayorga or Edison Mirando to get Williams riled up enough to be interesting.
2. Bag gloves become legal in Vegas
Man, since when did 10-ounce gloves become so damn big? The most amazing thing about the Williams-Wright fight was that Williams could penetrate Winky’s Grant gloves, which looked like he was carrying volleyballs on his hands. I know that glove manufacturers like Winning (out of Japan) have larger, more padded gloves, but I didn’t think Grant, of all people, made a pillow-puncher model. I have 16-ounce bag gloves in my basement smaller than those things! Next thing we’ll hear from Jim Lampley is, “He connects with a straight right hand… at least, I think he did. With his defense up, I haven’t been able to actually see his head since round four!”
3. Holt on just a minute…
It is becoming increasingly obvious these days that one thing you can depend on with Jr. welterweight Kendall Holt is that you can’t depend on him. Seemingly with all the tools needed to become great, Holt showed in last week’s title fight against Timothy Bradley that he might just not have it mentally to get there. For a guy who talks all the trash possible to get a mental edge on his opponent, once in the ring, that seems to go south on him. After mouthing off during the prefight instructions (tacky, to say the least), Holt then decked Bradley with a superb left hook in the first round, putting Bradley immediately into survival mode. Despite having all this momentum, Holt then basically quit pressing his advantage and let Bradley outwork him the rest of the fight. Holt knocked down Bradley twice and still lost 115-111 on two cards, which should tell you how many rounds the judges though Holt lost. While Holt is a likeable guy and has the personality Paul Williams doesn’t, it was clear that Bradley had the clearer focus (Holt repeatedly refused to do anything his corner told him the entire fight). If Holt doesn’t get it together, his will be a lot of talent wasted.
4. Looking into the Cristobal
Yes, heavyweight Cristobal Arreola is too heavy at 255 pounds. Yes, he’s very sloppy at times. Yes, he swears too much during the post-fight interview. But despite all these drawbacks, there’s something about Arreola that makes for compelling TV. That’s due to the fact that no matter what, he gives it his all, and Saturday, his all was way too much for Jameel McCline, who’s probably seen his last fight on the big stage. Arreola loves to throw big punches, which is a prerequisite for a successful heavyweight. Those punches had McCline out the door by round four. The question everybody wants answered, of course, is can he knock the Klitschko’s out with those punches? Eventually, we should get our answer, but likely not just yet. Arreola against another top heavy, such as Alexander Povetkin, should tell us more about whether Arreola’s ready or not.
5. Stupid interview question Hall Of Fame inductee
One of my personal favorite stupid questions was once again thrown back out there like a new Extenze commercial after the Arreola-McCline fight. Anytime a younger, ranked fighter beats an older trial horse who has fought many of the big names, interviewers seem obligated to ask the old guy if the young stud can beat any of the big names out there. So what the hell is the old guy, in this case McCline, supposed to say? If he says no, it means that Arreola is good enough to beat him, but not anyone that really has some talent. What self-respecting fighter is going to say that? If you don’t answer yes, you’re basically admitting you stink! Never mind that he just got his butt kicked in the fight, he’s probably smarting, ticked off he lost in the first place, and now he supposed to say how great his conqueror is? That question is as pointless as another Saw sequel.
No comments:
Post a Comment