Great Day To Be a Fight Fan. 12/5/2009

[Guest]

Amir Khan (21-1) vs. Dmitriy Salita (30-0-1)

(HBO) Paul Williams (37-1) vs. Sergio Martinez (44-1-2)
(The Ring Magazine #1 Jr. Middleeight vs. #4)
(HBO) Chris Areolla (27-1) vs. Brian Minto (34-2)
(The Ring Magazine #6 Heavyweight vs. Unranked)
Chazz Witherspoon (26-1) vs. Tony Thompson (32-3)
Carlos Quintana (26-2) vs. Jesse Feliciano (15-7-3)

UFC:
•Roy Nelson vs. Brendan Schaub ("TUF 10" tournament final)
•Matt Hamill vs. Jon Jones
•Houston Alexander vs. Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson
•Frankie Edgar vs. Matt Veach
•Marcus Jones vs. Matt Mitrione
•James McSweeney vs. Darrill Schoonover
•Jon Madsen vs. Justin Wren
•Brian Stann vs. Rodney Wallace
•Dennis Hallman vs. John Howard
•Mark Bocek vs. Joe Brammer

[British_Pharaoh]

I wish my last name was Feliciano

It sounds great when you say it out loud

[mswerb]

I'm looking for my boy, Marcus "The Darkness" Jones to serve up a beatdown on "Meathead" tonight.

[Guest]

Khan wins in 76 seconds

[Doc]

Looking forward to the TUF finale tonight. I think Schaub wins, but Nelson has a ton more bulk and experience.

Schaub and McSweeney look good. Not sure how much damage they can do at heavyweight, but I'd like to see if either could get down to 205. Marcus Jones could be very good...he's gonna tap Mitrione tonight. Too bad he's already 36 years old. No real future as a title contender, but will hopefully stick around. Should make for a couple entertaining undercard matches before he calls it quits.

Love Hamill, rooting for him today. Also, I think Kimbo's getting knocked out by Houston Alexander. Early.

[Doc]

Oh well. Big Baby knocked out early 2nd by Mitrione. Jones looked out of shape to me, and was obviously winded in the 1st.

[Rusty]

Paul "The Most Avoided Punisher" Williams got beat up Saturday night. He showed some heart, but lost 115-113 by my count. The Judge that had it 119-111 should be banned from the sport.

Kelly Pavlik knocks this over-hype out without much of a problem.

[Guest]

Williams did get beat up.
He also won the fight, never stopped throwing punches or coming forward.
Fight of the year canidate, easily.
Sergio Martinez is a great fighter and showed a ton heart also, but was clearly running on fumes when Willaims could have gone a few more rounds.

Either one of these two guys would beat Pavlik, but they would be damn good exciting fights.

[swerb]

Finally got a chance to see the Paul Williams/Sergio Martinez fight. What a fight.

I had it a draw. 114-114. The judge who had it 119-111, well, he should never work another fight again. We've seen this a lot recently. Scorecards that make no sense. Diaz/Malignaggi. The Funeka robbery against Guzman. This fight. Bottom line, you produce a scorecard like that, you should be gone from the sport. It's another reason why boxing really needs a commissioner or some sort of commissioning body that can govern the sport and make decisions based on its best interest. Not this state to state bull shit.

Anyway, Paul Williams was exposed. Sergio Martinez is a nice fighter. He's also 34 years old and fought Kermit Cintron to a draw 6 months ago. He's has not one quality win in his life. Paul Williams, if he is #3 lb for lb, should be mopping the floor with guys like this. Not eating 30 punches a round from them. Kelly Pavlik, or any other fighter at 154/160 with any power whatsoever would have had him stopped by round three.

Paul Williams clearly has a lot of talent. He's also making a huge career mistake if he thinks he can fight top middleweights. He should stay at 147/154.

[Guest]

If you saw the Cintron Martinez fight, you would know it wasn't a draw.
The ref stopped the fight via Martinez KO. Then a minute later said wasn't over. Talk about a joke.
The speed of Martinez will give anyone problems just like the pressure and number of punches that Williams throws will.
2 high quality fighters and it was on display Saturday night. A few flaws sure, but all guys at 154 and 160 have those.

[swerb]

He's a good fighter. You said great. I say you can't be a great fighter without one quality win in your entire career, that's all.

Martinez is solid. Also has a hard time getting fights.

Paul Williams should have walked right through him. He's six years younger, 3 inches taller, and had a 6 inch reach advantage.

Both these guys need to stay at 154, max. Both are very viable and dangerous fighters at that weight. Williams with more upside obviously. But he gets hit too much. A figher with any power at all at 154/160 woulda put him to sleep within 3 rounds Saturday night. I hope Pavlik is the one that gets to do it.

[Guest]

I honestly think Martinez presents more problems for Pavlik than Williams would.
Both guys are going to have a tough time finding fights, so look for a rematch. Hopefully at 154 this time.

[bustedknuckles]

Not going to jump on or off Williams or Pavlik's bandwagon but will just add a few things to consider. Perhaps after all is said and done, it is best for both of them that the original December 5th fight didn't happen as planned.

* After seeing Pavlik's open workout this week there is no way he would have been able to perform as needed against an opponent that presents the challanges that Paul Williams does. There is too much "ring rust" at this point and the snap isn't back yet. It would have been a repeat of the Hopkins ordeal. With that said, I think he needs one more fight (and a quick one like March) after Espino before he's ready to go against a pound for pound type guy.

* I'm not sure Williams is ready for a big Middle like Pavlik/Abraham right now. I'm not saying he can't or won't be in the future, but maybe he needs a couple more fights against some blown up jr middles like Martinez first. Keep in mind that Martinez basically started off as a welterweight and I don't think has KO power as a MW. Another theory is that Williams is going to lose some of his edge with height/reach, etc as he moves up in weight...its only natural to anticipate that and it happened to Pavlik relative to his power when he moved up two weight classes vs Hopkins. Just sayin not everybody has that Manny Pacquiao ability to move freely amongst weight classes with no repercussions.

So to conclude, I don't think with these factors Pavlik v. Williams would have lived up to its hype on December 5 and certainly not to the level Williams V Martinez did. Hopefully in the future it can/will.

[Rusty]

I have never seen such a highly rated boxer throw as many meaningless and lackluster punches as Paul Williams. The guy is a total freaking robot.

Kelly puts him to sleep inside of three rounds.