King Arthur Williams Close To Another World Title Shot
Former IBF cruiserweight champion “King” Arthur Williams will have world title aspirations next Saturday, October 13, 2007, when the steel-tough veteran will appear on the same bill as middleweight Tyrone Brunson’s attempt to break the world KO record at the Chez Paree Club in Carter Lake, Iowa on a Settles Entertainment promotion.
Williams, 43-14-1 (30), is coming off a spectacular performance on the undercard of last year’s Roy Jones victory over Prince Badi Ajamu at the Qwest Arena in Boise, Idaho where the 42 year turned back the clock to stop the highly seasoned Kenny Keene in the tenth and final round.
“Keene came into that fight with three losses in 54 fights and had never hit the canvas in his career,” said Repo Ric, Williams’ cut man who is also a manager and matchmaker out of his base in Fresno, California.
“But Arthur finished Keene off in dramatic fashion in the last round and that was after he suffered a real bad cut in the sixth that I managed to fix. He can still fight but nobody wants to fight King Arthur, he’s too much of a risk.”
Williams has fought in four major world title contests and from 1991 to 2003 had only lost to world champions such as O’Neill Bell, Vassiliy Jirov, Chris Byrd, Orlin Norris and Kelvin Davis while defeating world titlists Imamu Mayfield and Adolpho Washington as well as world title challengers Darren Zenner and Dan Ward.
According to his manager, Jason Schlessinger, the still dangerous “King Arthur” is just one step away from another world title shot but Schlessinger concedes that it could be difficult to get the top men to face his fighter.
“Arthur is trying to make his final comeback to get another world title shot,” said the Los Angeles based Schlessinger. “We want to get this fight next Saturday at Carter Lake behind us and then hopefully get rated again in the world top ten.
“As a former IBF champ, if you get two wins in a row, you can fight for the title again. After this fight, Arthur will ideally have three wins in a row and the IBF have told me that they have no problem putting him in for a title shot.
“The problem for us is getting someone to fight Arthur. He asked Roy Jones to fight him last year when they were on the same card but the best just won’t face Arthur; a lot of people don’t want to risk getting beat by an older fighter.”
The promoter of the fight night at the Chez Paree Club, Craig Settles of Settles Entertainment, is counting on fighters like “King” Arthur Williams and undefeated power punching sensation Tyrone Brunson to help him in his battle to bring the sport back to the forefront of once thriving local boxing scenes.
“We’re committed to putting on quality fight cards and this one should be very entertaining and a lot of fun,” said Settles. “They’ve been doing a lot of MMA in Iowa and haven’t had much boxing for awhile, so we’re bringing boxing back to the area and I can’t think of a better way to do that then with King Arthur and also Tyrone Brunson going for the world KO record.”
Joining Brunson and Williams on October 13 are undefeated junior middleweight and former Golden Gloves winner Tony Hirsch along with unbeaten welterweight knockout artist Joaquin Marquez and others.
Settles Entertainment presents “Do Or Die”, an exciting night of boxing headlined by Tyrone Brunson and Arthur Williams, supported by a full undercard, at the Chez Paree Club, located at 1313 Locust Street, in Carter Lake, Iowa on Saturday, October 13, 2007.
Tickets are priced at $40 Ringside, $30 Premium Seating, $25 General Admission and can be purchased by logging onto www.ticketalternative.com or by calling 877-725-8849.
For more information, call Repo Ric at 559-352-1844.