QUINTANA DETHRONES WILLIAMS IN MAJOR UPSET
By Ron Brashear Photos: Eric
Van Dyke/InsideBoxing.com (More Photos)
Inside Boxing Writer/Columnist
(IB – February 9, 2008) – In what was suppose to be just another showcase of the
most avoided fighter in the welterweight division, turned out to be a huge
upset! Carlos “El Indio” Quintana (25-1, 19 KOs), who was a huge 8-1 underdog,
executed a great fight plan
and beat the
previous undefeated Paul “The Punisher” Williams (33-1, 24 KOs) by unanimous
decision scores of 116-112, 116-112, and 115-113 at the Pechanga Resort in
Temecula, California and aired on HBO’s BAD (Boxing After Dark).
Williams was making his first defense of his WBO title after defeating Antonio
Margarito in July of 2007. With the victory over Margarito, it had propelled
Williams into stardom and most fighters didn’t want to risk fighting this 6’1”
southpaw champion. After unsuccessfully securing a bout with any of the other
current champions or high profile opponents, the Williams camp took the fight
with Quintana and viewed this fight mainly as a tune up and a showcase fight for
William’s enormous talent. Apparently though, Quintana had different plans and
had even warned Williams not to overlook him.
Well, from the moment of the opening bell, the pattern of this fight was
established and it was Quintana that became the PUNISHER instead of Williams.
Quintana landed overhand lefts to the jaw of Williams that definitely got his
attention and Williams didn’t seem to have any defense to block these solid
punches. This continued throughout the early rounds of the fight. To Williams’
credit, he was able to take these punches but Quintana built up an early lead in
this fight.
Williams remained competitive through the middle rounds but his punches didn’t
have the same effect on Quintana and he couldn’t figure out how to dodge the
overhand lefts that were coming directly at his jaw. By the 8th round, Williams’
face was swollen and he had cuts over both eyes from the accumulation of punches
he was absorbing.
Going into the late rounds Williams needed a knockout to turn this trend around
and was unable to land any solid combinations on the elusive Quintana. So in the
end, we witnessed a major upset and the dethroning of a champion whom seemed to
be on a major rise to super stardom. After the fight, Quintana stated, “I wanted
to knock him out but I ran out of wind a little bit.” As for Williams, he could
only offer, “Tonight wasn’t my night. I just didn’t get into my rhythm.”
I, like many, was shocked to see how easy Quintana was able to connect with his
overhand left over and over again. If Williams is to rebound from this setback,
he will need to put a lot of focus on defense and stay far away from other
southpaws like Quintana. This just goes to show that anything can happen in this
business of boxing and if you don’t bring your A game into the ring, you will
get an F (failure to succeed).
On the under card, rising welterweight star Andre Berto, of Miami, Florida
improved his perfect record to (21-0, 18 KOs) and stopped Michel Trabant, of
Berlin, Germany at the end of the 6th round.
You have just gone InsideBoxing.com
Ron Brashear can be contacted at brashear@insideboxing.com, ron@youthofhonor.org
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