’Mr Peterson’, would be George Peterson, his trainer and manager, who said of the whole snafu,"What happened is we got to a point after awhile where you realize it’s not going to happen. We came to the realization that it wasn’t going to happen. It didn’t take much to realize that because we had negotiations going good with Kelly Pavlik( last year), for two weeks we thought the fight was made, came to find out he chose Bernard Hopkins. And then coming back, we were supposed to have that fight for October the 3rd and we were looking forward to that. We were right on schedule and ready and then that didn’t happen. We came up with December the 5Th, then that didn’t happen. It was time.
"But I just realized just before then it just wasn’t going to happen."
Peterson said that he just had the gut feeling all along that Pavlik-Williams would be a no-go.
"Oh, absolutely, no doubt about that, because see, I’m old-fashioned, and I was around when Roberto Duran, Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns, those guys. Those guys fought. But today we got a lot of powder-puffs, y’know what I mean? They like to have the image, they like to have the title of being a professional boxer but they don’t mean that. They don’t really mean that. These guys today are looking for somebody they know they can beat. But they wont fight nobody that’s going to make them sweat."
As Pavlik decided to pull the plug on the December date, HBO yanked the date from Top Rank and gave it to Goossen-Tutor, who tabbed Martinez to face Williams, who has not fought since his decisive win over Winky Wright in April. Since that time, all their focus had been on the middleweight champion. Was this time wasted?
"I wouldn’t say wasted, I would say I basically trained for the wrong fight," said Williams."I got right-handed fighters and putting on weight, working on certain stuff, you gotta tear it all down and get left-handed sparring partners preparing for somebody else. It was just a waste of using the wrong sparring partners and a waste of money, training with guys you ain’t even going to use."
And at the end, ’the Ghost’ never appeared.
"We were going to be the ’Ghost-busters’’, quipped Williams." But looking past that, getting to Martinez, I got another test to prove to everybody that I’m the best." Martinez, is a respected fighter, but there’s a reason why this fight is taking place at the small ballroom and not the big house. Pavlik, is the type of marquee name he has been yearning to face, a potential victory that would raise his Q-rating. Beating Martinez looks nice on the resume, but it doesn’t do all that much in terms of upping his profile to the casual fan. When asked if he was angry or disappointed over the turn of events, Williams, answered,"It was both, it was like in the midst of both of them. I was disappointed and kinda angry that we put all this money up and people had bought tickets and all that stuff. It was going to be a big fight and they pull out, again, like this?"
Williams added later," Then to come back like two weeks later and fight? C’mon, that shows you right there."
( Pavlik, in a move that did raise some eye-brows, faces Miguel Espino on December the 19Th in Youngstown, Ohio. More on that later.)
But for now, he faces Martinez, who with his slick, southpaw style, may pose more problems than Pavlik would have.
"On paper, that’s the way it looks, his style, he is more of a mover than Pavlik, where he’s a straight mover," Williams stated of the contrasting styles."But to me, it’s no problem. I’m going to blow him out the water. He ain’t never fought nobody like me. He’s been fighting C-class and in my opinion, D-class fighters. He ain’t never fought an A-class fighter like me. He’s talking about he’s going to knock me out and all this, I’m glad he’s saying all that because I know he’s not looking for the long run. I’m going to wax him in there, I’m going to show him how an A-class fighter, fights."
But doesn’t he possess some of the same qualities as one Carlos Quintana, who handed Williams his only loss back in February of 2008?
"I mean, it was just like one of them days you just don’t have it," said Williams, who ended up destroying Quintana in their rematch, several months later."One of them days you’ll be off. I wasn’t over-looking Quintana or nothing like that, we were prepared for ( Kermit) Cintron and that didn’t go through and then we were trying to build up for Quintana and I was just too relaxed in there. I allowed him to do that. When we got into exchanges, I didn’t fight him. I let him grab me, tie me up and stuff. I basically let him dictate the fight. On the rematch, I showed him what happens when I’m in control and when I’m fighting."
So let’s say he defeats Martinez, as expected, then what? The reality is that all the other marquee names around this weight class, from Manny Pacquiao, to Floyd Mayweather, to Shane Mosley, have expressed no interest in ever facing ’the Punisher.’ What about re-visiting the Pavlik fight?
Cameron Dunkin, Pavlik’s manager, says that they are game.
" Absolutely, Kelly, wants it really bad and he wants the fight to happen. He wanted it to happen before, he wanted it to happen this time and it’s going to happen. And the way they’re talking, they’re so cocky and confident, now, I’m sure it’s going to happen," he said.
As for the December date, Dunkin says they would have faced Williams on the 19Th, but that it just wasn’t feasible." I went to Todd duBoef( president of Top Rank) and I said,’Todd, how ’bout rolling the dice?’ Because Kelly was begging me,’Can you do December? Give me two more weeks, give me three more weeks.’ I said,’Kelly, that’s Christmas.’ And he goes,’Well give me two weeks, I know I can make it.’ I told Todd and he said,’Well, I agree with you Cameron, but if we’re wrong again, this time we’re going to have a real major problem. But I’ll throw it at them.’ And they all agreed not to take the risk and go ahead and stay with the 5Th, which I understand. But it wasn’t because we didn’t want the fight and I know it’s only two weeks and people are saying stuff, but the truth is, two weeks can make a big difference, believe me."
OK, so what if Pavlik’s staph infection clears up and he comes out of the Espino fight clean, would Williams and his representatives consider going down this road, again?
"What staph infection?" said Peterson, laughing, before getting serious." We couldn’t go back because I’m in denial. I don’t believe it will ever happen and after three occasions, see, he realized the ability that Paul has. He realized that he lost to Bernard Hopkins and Paul is much younger than Bernard and three times as fast as Hopkins and the style that Bernard beat him with, that’s the same formula that we would apply. Somebody woke him up, that’s what it was. They woke him up and said,’Hey, man, you done made the wrong decision, here.’ But no, we wouldn’t want to entertain that, again."
Williams says he would though- but with some qualifiers.
"If I do put my signature on that contract, they would have to put some upfront money for me to fight him, guarantee that,’OK, he don’t fight, you’ll definitely be guaranteed to get paid this, right here.’It would have to be something like that. We don’t want to go through another training camp, this has been our most expensive training camp through Kelly Pavlik and having to switch out guys and finding left-handed guys. All because of him."
That sounds a lot like a security deposit on an apartment, doesn’t it?
"Yeah," said Williams,"and it’s going to have to be a high security deposit."
BAD DECISION ON ’BAD’
The IBF lightweight title remains vacant because of a puzzling decision rendered by the judges who somehow called the bout between Ali Funeka and Joan Guzman a draw this past weekend in Quebec City. While Joe Pasquale had Funeka winning 116-112( which was the overwhelming consensus of those who saw the fight), somehow, a pair of Canadian judges, Benoit Roussell and Jean-Guy Brousseau, had the fight a dead even draw at 114-114.
Maybe it was just me, but watching from my sofa, wrapped up in my Snuggie, I found it hard to give Guzman more than a round or two after the first two frames( which I thought he won). But from that point on, Funeka’s range and jab kept Guzman at bay all night. In the eighth stanza, he staggered Guzman with a short right-cross. By the end of 12 frames, Guzman was bruised, battered and bloodied. Yet somehow he walked away with a draw.
I’m told that Gary Shaw will protest this decision and petition that Funeka be named the interim champion. I think what he’ll end up with is that his fighter getting the very next crack at the very same title( which is fair). But if he has to rematch Guzman, it brings up an interesting problem. There’s no doubt that what took place on Saturday night was a ’house decision’ in favor or Guzman, who is promoted by Golden Boy. Let’s say a rematch is mandated by the IBF, if you’re Shaw where do you put this fight?
A friend of mine said to me on Sunday afternoon that he could already see this being a part of the undercard of the Hopkins-Roy Jones card in March. Which certainly wouldn’t be the worst fight we’ve seen on recent pay-per-view undercards. But if you’re Shaw, do you dare stick this fight on someone else’s show?
SHOBOX
The match-up between Rico Ramos and Alejandro Perez was one of the best back-and-forth battles seen on this series. Ramos was just simply too fast of foot and hand for the aggressive Perez. The main event saw Martin Honorio hand Johnny Molina his first professional loss. Honorio is not known as a stick-and-move boxer, but he really exposed Molina’s inability to handle movement from the outside. Molina is strong as a bull and he can bang, but the reality is that Joe Goossen has a lot of work to do here, from improving Molina’s footwork and balance, to tightening up his punching frame.
The development of Molina will be a long-term process and it might be best to keep him off TV for awhile and let him grow at his own pace.
CREDENTIALS
People ask me what I do with my press credentials once the fight is over. Well, basically I collect them and put them up in my office.
Here are some other pictures of my office, AKA, ’ the Lil Orange Bowl of the West’, that some of you have asked about. Yes, I do actually go into ’work’ everyday.
FINAL FLURRIES
It was quite the atmosphere in Quebec City wasn’t it when Lucian Bute came out? I think all American promoters should take note on how to package their events....As for Bute’s stunning KO of Librado Andrade, does that over take Manny Pacquiao’s destruction of Ricky Hatton for ’Knockout of the Year’ in 2009?....Is Pete Carroll a big hypocrite for pouring it on UCLA late like he did? Jim Harbaugh has to be laughing at the thought. But seriously, the end of the USC-UCLA game ended up looking like the Bloods vs. the Crips at the Coliseum.....Speaking of the Bruins, that UCLA hoops squad is the worst I’ve seen in Westwood since the days when Walt Hazzard was roaming the sidelines. This squad may not make the NIT. What happened to all these big Ben Howland recruiting classes? Darren Collison, Russell Westbrook and Jrue Holiday, ain’t walking through that door.....Did Tiger Woods yell ’fore!!!’ before he ran into the fire hydrant and tree?....I’m told that in honor of his wife, all paramedics and emergency crews will now use golf clubs to pry people from their vehicles instead of the jaws-of-life....My Heisman ballot( which I don’t have) would read like this: 1- Toby Gerhart, 2- CJ Spiller, 3- Colt McCoy, 4- Mark Ingram, 5- Tim Tebow.....The latest edition of ’
the Main Event’ features Bert Sugar and Andre Ward....Any questions or comments, please contact me at
k9kim@yahoo.com.....
Twitter.com/stevemaxboxing....
