Williams Decisions Lara/Judges Punish Boxing
We can observe the sport of boxing on TV or at the fights, but the business of boxing happens in places about which most of are neither aware nor ever frequent…
Boxing is an intriguing, thrilling, melancholy sport. But we should never forget that boxing is also a business. We observe the sport of boxing on TV or at the fights, but the business of boxing happens in places about which most of are neither aware nor ever frequent.
So, on one hand there’s the public face of boxing, the public face of pride and scar tissue, resilience and broken noses, where courage is not measured with teaspoons, but with fistfuls of glory. And on the other there’s the private face of boxing, the face that is tanned and well-fed, always smiling and reassuring, but never telling it like it really is.
After his devastating KO loss to Sergio Martinez last November, Paul “The Punisher” Williams (40-2, 27 KOs) hoped to make a statement Saturday night at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. He wanted everyone to know that he was back, that he was better than ever, and that the knockout he suffered at Martinez’s hands was a fluke, a bump in the road on his road to greatness.
Unfortunately for Williams, his opponent Erislandy Lara (15-1-1, 10 KOs) had a statement of his own to make, and he wasn’t about to let The Punisher prevent him from making it.
Lara, like all of us who follow the fights, had theories about Williams’ chin going in. But unlike the rest of us, Lara was positioned to put those theories to the test. With pinpoint accuracy he dominated the first three rounds, using his power, ring smarts and resourcefulness to keep Williams on the defensive.
Williams started to open up in rounds four, five, and six. He was the busier fighter, finally letting his hands go and landing some punches, while Lara continued sharpshooting.
The Punisher began taking some serious punishment in the seventh and eighth rounds. Williams was tiring, his hands were low, and Lara’s hard lefts were now being thrown in combinations with hard rights. Williams’ offense, such as it was, was simply no match for Lara’s performance. It was though he had Williams’ chin in his sites and all he had to do was pull the trigger.
Williams rallied at the beginning of round nine, but his rally was short-lived as Lara picked up the action, landing straight lefts with almost no resistance from his opponent. Williams’ head was swiveling this way and that, and every other punch Lara landed buckled his knees.
What little defense Williams displayed in the first ten stanzas had all but disappeared during the championship rounds. Lara continued to land at will. He tied up Williams when he tried to get off, and continued punishing The Punisher. Williams was bleeding from the nose and mouth. It was getting ugly, as it always gets ugly when one man loses badly. Those watching the fight with me were yelling at the TV, “Stop it! Stop it! What’s the point?” There was no point; that was the point. The announcers were writing Williams’ epitaph with sound over the airwaves. Williams was a beaten fighter, who was going to get beaten some more.
To those not blind, deaf and dumb (or worse) to the goings-on in the ring, Lara owned Williams. The Cuban beat him to the punch all night long, landing long looping lefts to Williams’ face whenever he wanted. The one-dimensional Williams didn’t have an answer to the beating he was taking.Paul Williams fought the way he always fights—the only way he knows how to fight—hanging tough, but it wasn’t enough.
Williams came into the fight without a blueprint, and his sleepy-eyed trainer should be put to pasture for dereliction of duty. But Williams never stopped fighting. He fought his inside game as well as he ever has, a big man fighting like a small man. It was just that the shorter (by four inches) Lara had Williams’ number and left the former welterweight champion a bruised and bloodied husk after twelve rounds.
Any impartial observer watching the fight knew that it was, if not a shutout by Lara, a lopsided decision in the Cuban’s favor. Yet the judges scored the bout 114-114, 115-114, 116-114, a majority decision for Williams.
Boxing is the most subjective of sports. Even though we have judges and referees, rules and standards for evaluating a boxer’s performance, we also rely on our gut to tell us who has more work to do, and who—if it’s a decision—actually won.
Saturday night, that man was Erislandy Lara. Williams may be the money fighter, but he’s not the better fighter, not by far.
_-80x53.jpg)
2-80x53.jpg)