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It’s been a busy week for Golden Boy Promotions as unbeaten Danny Garcia is scheduled to fight Britain’s former WBA and IBF Light Welterweight Champion Amir Khan, while two divisions up at Light Middleweight, Golden Boy’s young Mexican starlet Saul Alvarez has signed to fight former WBO Welterweight champion and interim Light-Middleweight champion Paul Williams at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on the 15th September.
It will be the 21-year-old Alvarez’s fifth defence of the WBC’s 11 stone [154 pounds] title since defeating former European Welterweight champion Matthew Hatton in Anaheim in 2011.
Since winning the WBC strap, Alvarez has defeated former British and European champion Ryan Rhodes with a 12th round stoppage, former Welterweight title challenger Alfonso Gomez in a sixth round technical knockout along with former big hitting Puerto Rican Welterweight world champion Kermit Cintron in one round less.
And, in his most recent defence, Alvarez went the full championship distance with American three-weight world champion and future hall of famer Sugar Shane Mosley.
Paul Williams has an equally impressive record in terms of his stand out opposition, holding wins against Sergio Martinez in a fight of the year candidate back in 2009 and defeating two weight world champion Ronald “Winky” Wright in a 12 round Middleweight non title fight that same year.
In 2008, Williams bombed out big hitting Puerto Rican Carlos Quintana in one round to win the WBO Welterweight title in their rematch and stopped two time Light-Middleweight champion Verno Phillips.
Most recently, Williams gained a controversial points win against rising Cuban star Erislandy Lara in a WBC eliminator.
Unlike Alvarez, Williams has lost twice in his career, which were a points decision loss to Quintana which he avenged in his next fight and in his second fight with Martinez, Williams was knocked out cold in two rounds in December 2009 in what Ring Magazine voted as their “Knockout of the Year”.
Williams has the height advantage, standing at 6ft 1 to Alvarez’s 5ft 9 and an eight inch reach advantage of 79 inches to Alvarez’s 71 inches.
Williams’ incredible reach even equals that of Vitali Klitchsko, the 6ft 7 current WBC Heavyweight Champion and is four inches greater than WBA Heavyweight Champion Alexander Povetkin.
So, you would expect Williams would look to use his superior physical attributes although he has a penchant for committing to infighting and turning a fight into a brawl, which would play into the big hitting Alvarez’s hands as Saul has knocked out 29 of his 40 victims to date and has boxed 53 more rounds than the older Williams.
It is arguably one of the toughest fights to predict this year as strong cases can be made for both men. But one thing is certain and that is that the ingredients are there for a potential fight of the year candidate, so stay in and watch it if you can.
