26 years ago today: Charles Williams vs. Earnest Mahir Abdul-Mateen

Thank you, bonnie "Prince Charlie"!

For those who aren't familiar with this lowlife scumbag, Mateen is the guy that was disqualified in a fight with James Toney for roughly a zillion rabbit punches - and was later shot by his wife in self-defense after he nearly pistol-whipped her to death. I made a thread several years ago, sort of a rogue's gallery highlighting Mateen and some other bottom-feeders (Edwin Valero, Adonis Stevenson, Tony Ayala, Khoren Gevor, Luiz Alberto Lazarte, James Butler, Donovan George, Carlos Baldomir, etc) with a title along the lines of "All-Time Pieces of ****, Inside The Ring & Out". Most were either prohibitively (as in, you probably wouldn't feel comfortable rooting for them, but to each his own..) shitty people under one umbrella or the other: they either were flagrant rule-breakers who jeopardized their opponents' (and in some cases the referees' and other bystanders') health with essentially tantrums which in any other context would be prosecuted as felony assault but which often gets swept under the rug, even in aggravated cases, when in the heat of the moment in combat sports competition - or they viciously beat, molested and/or killed women, animals, or children. Only a special few straddled both categories - and Mateen is nestled in just below James Butler (who sucker punched Richard Grant out cold after losing to Grant in their ESPN2 rematch; and later murdered the brother of Max Kellerman) as the worst of those dual-offenders.

My thread was summarily deleted. I'm not going to name any names (because I don't actually know) but whichever mod or admin it was, they hard-deleted it - as in no trace left, and no chance of restoring it upon appeal. Not that I've been wicked salty about it for the better part of a decade or anything..

And when I say my title included the phrases "pieces of ***" - that's literally what it said. Four asterisks. This predated my being a mod on here, so there was no bypassing filters (yet) on my end. So even if that was the flimsy justification for deletion, it wasn't like there was a naughty word actually visible to list-crawlers. Oh well.

I feel like there was footage of Williams vs. Mateen uploaded somewhere online at some point; and vaguely remember embedding a YT link in the aforementioned thread. If anybody knows where it might be hidden, post the URL (or if you have the fight on DVD, share already! You can't take it with you when you die, you know... )

Anyway, just as watching Gvozdyk brutalize Adonis Stevenson is an immensely gratifying experience, it would be great to see Williams thrashing Mateen (although for Prince Charles himself, the glory would be short-lived as the only thing it earned him was an even more severe thrashing in turn from James Toney). Ditto for Butler's one-sided loss against Omar Sheika (one-sided, but still inexplicably a SD; even though "Flushing Flash" Kevin Kelly had it a shutout for Sheika ), actually.