Paul "The Punisher" Williams retrospective, a decade after career-ending accident

It was ten years ago this weekend that PTP fought a battle more fraught and higher-stakes than any he would ever wage on the cotton-duck stage, hooked up to life support awaiting emergency surgery after being yeeted from his motorcycle at high speed into a roadside levee in Marietta.

The former welterweight titlist was going 75mph when, upon approaching a curve, he was hemmed in by a passing vehicle and forced to attempt to desperately thread a needle between it and an oncoming one in the opposite lane around the bend. He was, although speeding (in a rush to get fitted into a tux for his brother's wedding), unimpaired and wearing a helmet - which is one trillion percent the only reason he is still alive. He landed on his skull and, per investigators, "folded like a briefcase" - yikes. Initially reported as having been severed, his spine turned out to be merely bruised - still enough to remain wheelchair bound until this very day.

His optimism about not only walking but competing someday remained infectious even as it became increasingly apparent that he was fated to never lace up again. By about 2014 even the most hopeful of supporters had come around to accepting that his legacy stood as it was and remains. That legacy is a complicated one.

Part of the problem with subsequent perceptions of his greatness and h2h standing was timing, with his tragic capstone occuring just 1½ years after being KTFO in the Martínez rematch. More than any of the ups and downs in his last few active years, that has been left as the indelible memory of him burned into the average fan's mind. There is also the fact that in his penultimate outing, most observers (myself included) felt he got a gift over Lara, with virtually all of press row along with a nigh unrivaled 93% of fan scorecards at EyeOnTheRing having it 117-111 or thereabouts for the "The American Dream". In fairness, however, this was quite arguably the skillful and often negative Cuban stylist at the absolute top of his game - coming in with the confidence of the undefeated and still relatively fresh off his very successful amateur period. And while the nod should indeed have gone to Lara, it wasn't like a lot of those rounds he deserved weren't competitive, as Williams chucked over a thousand blows from the first bell until the last.

He technically never lost at 154 (the loss in Quintana I coming at welter and Maravilla II for the MW title but contested under a catch-weight of 158) but even putting the Lara gift aside, had an uneven run of performances at junior middle. He dominated Verno Phillips, but then had trouble with mercurial boricua Kermit Cintrón before the bizarre ring-out ending. He shut out Ishida with ease, which carried some weight until Dmitry Pirog took some luster off the feat by replicating it a few short months later (followed by Golovkin upstaging both of them by quickly & violently squashing the Japanese beanpole the following year). When he was injured PTP was slated to challenge for the green belt at super welter in what ought to have been Canelo's fifth defense. The prevailing narrative has become that he was doomed to fail - but that sense of surety may be distorted by a combination of Canelo's trajectory since and some gaps in memory regarding just how respected Williams used to be.

Younger fans, of course, may only be familiar with him as the unfortunate victim of that Knockout of the Millennium So Far candidate, the subject of ridicule in oft-circulated pieces of bite-size media (ie GIF or short video clip). They may be unaware that for a while, his name stood amongst those of Floyd Mayweather and Miguel Cotto as generational welterweight talents and that some fans, pundits and industry folk not only felt he was avoided by that pair and other peers at 147, but also didn't entirely dismiss his chances with top middleweights of the day such as Pirog and Golovkin themselves.

He was, a few exceptions aside, reliably an exciting fighter. A six foot one inch southpaw, he posted a very high work rate while remaining heavy-handed enough that you definitely wanted to keep your guard up, and, while his chin issues have been overblown due to his instantaneous relegation to laughingstock status after the iconic Martínez II kayo, he did carry the aura of vulnerability given both his imperfect punch resistance and his willingness to give up his usual height & reach advantages to brawl.

I'll let new initiates or the forgetful judge for themselves. Here are my best efforts to dig up every scrap of footage there is, outside the attics of miserly collectors hoarding the odd grainy career-set DVD, or home VCR recordings of his earliest cable television appearances.

For the first half and change of his campaign there is nothing available on the internet. There are only 15 of 43 bouts certifiably uploaded and searchable for the general public - and just one in his first 29, with the last fourteen spanning Matthysse through Ishida documenting his transition from buzz generating prospect to perpetually Ring Magazine ranked global star. They are listed chronologically below.

The very earliest to be found is his 26th pro bout, versus Terrance Cauthen in his ShoBox debut (after "graduating" from a run of half a dozen fights on ESPN2 FNF from 2002-2004) in early 2005, almost five years after turning pro:

This content is protected

30th, versus Walter Dario Matthysse:

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31st, versus Sharmba Mitchell:
https://vk.com/video-19034000_162011347

32nd, versus Santos Pakau:

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33rd, versus Antonio Margarito:

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34th, versus Carlos Quintana (1):

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35th, versus Carlos Quintana (II):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x84iuMZwNWM

36th, versus Andy Kolle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O28ltgQ1t5k

37th, versus Verno Phillips:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42BeX7tqnxI

38th, versus Ronald "Winky" Wright:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1t09H9SYks

39th, versus Sergio Gabriel Martínez (I):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5TY3JWyY4U

40th, versus Kermit Cintrón:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUupAfMcdjc

41st, versus Sergio Gabriel Martínez (II):
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xklxrw

42nd, versus Erislandy Lara:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=688kDZOnkuw

43rd, versus Nobuhiro Ishida:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc4Kw0o21hc

#44 would have, but for that fateful swerve on the asphalt, been Santos Saúl "Canelo" Álvarez Barragán - having just been officially announced on May 22nd, exactly a week before Williams' mishap on his custom yellow Suzuki. Now, this is a version of Álvarez that was seen as still a work in progress and somewhat protected, facing several older & smaller opponents in a row - all of them (Carlos Baldomir, Lovemore N'Dou, Matthew Hatton, Ryan Rhodes, and Alfonso Gómez) rather light-hitting to boot, until he stepped up to Cintrón and Mosley. Williams may have fit the "older" mold but he certainly wasn't smaller - and despite being more of a volume puncher, he was no feather-fist. He probably whacked at least as hard as mutual foe Cintrón and, while not as devastating p4p as SSM was in his lightweight to welter prime, PTP likely possessed more firepower than 40 year old Shane at 154.

I have always had a soft sport for Paul The Punisher, for a number of reasons. First off, he was a warrior, stepping in with a slew of pain in the ass "who needs 'em" type figthers and rarely ever taking a backward step. Furthermore, he was, a few quirky (and sometimes dopey-sounding and easy to poke fun at) idiosyncracies of speech notwithstanding, a seemingly very nice dude about whom you'll not hear any who ever crossed paths with him in the sport offer a cross word. Third, he shares a b-day with Lil' Butt, who came into the world just as Williams celebrated his first one after surviving the accident.

Now, having said all that, maybe I am overselling his chances with Canelo. He was nine years older and had in all probability already peaked, and had a worse showing with Kermit from which to draw some limited inferences (with the usual caveats about triangle-theories in boxing). At the same time, we have seen even the post-chrysalis evolved version of Álvarez given some trouble by size (ie Bivol & Plant, although Williams is admittedly smaller than both) as well as lefties in general (Lara, Trout, and BJS - although Williams isn't half as slick as them). I can't find them anymore, but recall the betting lines opened with Canelo installed as the modest favorite. That is more in line with reality, IMO, than some of the revisionist thinking over the last decade, where anytime you bring this up it gets written off as some kind of mismatch. In threads on here, other forums, and Reddit from that brief interval where it was officially scheduled, you can find there were a good few people leaning towards a mild upset. It probably would have gone twelve, and been a divisive and controversial decision either way, IMO. Whatever the result, sneaking in that one last bit of evidence would have gone a long way towards getting a firmer bead on PTP's legacy. It does feel a little crass to call him not getting to conduct one more boxing match a shame, given all else that has been denied to him and the fact that him even getting to wheel around is a miracle, but, like, all the same - nahmsayin?

 

At welter today you can probably sift out 4-5 guys that he isn't a slam dunk automatic sure thing over, and I'd still probably favor the WW version of him over most of those, with only Spence and Bud giving me pause.

Only really Charlo and Castaño at 154, and only Golovkin and other Charlo at 160.