Paul Williams is a shot fighter.

Paul has all the physical capability to be a champion on the level of Wlad in the lower weight classes but he's not fighting in a technical style.

He needs to spar with more southpaws if he can't deal with southpaws and he needs to specifically train to avoid that overhand left. If he can't learn to counter that punch he should retire.

 

What tool does Wlad have that Williams doesn't have? Power?

Wlad is just a really big and technically sound fighter. He wasn't that fighter until he got knocked out and got a new trainer who taught him to be that fighter.

Williams is similar. He has unique abilities like he can throw 100 punches a round. He also has brilliant infighting, something Wlad can't do. But he has one weakness, he does not utilize his height or technical abilities when he's at long range.

When he's infighting he looks like James Toney, he beats the **** out of just about anybody, and does so with technique and skill not physical ability. But then when at long range suddenly he's getting beat to the punch, beat with the jab, or countered with the overhand left, and there is no reason he has to be weak at long range.

Physically if he just uses his height and fights a boring but technical style fight, he easily will beat Martinez, Lara, or that style of fighter in general. He wont be jumping in throwing 100 punches a round, but more like 50 punches, and he will have to just fight a boring technical cerebral style fight.

The problem is he just doesn't strike me as being very intelligent. Someone who gets knocked out by the overhand left to the chin you'd think would spend the next year focusing on improving defense for that specific punch or punches like that punch and he didn't adapt. His ring IQ is zero and thats because of his trainer.

 

He moves really well at a certain specific range. Close range very few people can beat him. In a way he's like James Toney, when James Toney fights at his range he can dominate anybody including Wlad or Vitali, but when he's forced to fight outside of range he can be outboxed. Very few fighters can fight at any range. Wlad can't really fight inside, but he learned to keep opponents outside.

Williams can fight inside, and because of his height and reach he can learn to fight outside too, but he's one of these overly talented inside fighters (Toney is like this too), who just simply relies on his talent and who at some point just stopped trying to do more.

Williams proved he has power when he sat on his punches. So he can learn new techniques and if he can do that why couldn't he learn the Wlad jab? The Klitschko jab is not hard to learn for someone with his height and reach. He just isn't trying to learn it and I think it's stupid as hell.


And he showed he CAN Jab properly. In the first minute of the fight he was throwing a proper jab and using his height and then just seems like he got hit on the chin and forgot everything.

 

Yeah, like Wlad.

And look at how far you can take that if you have good technique.

The point is you don't have to be anything but big and technically skilled to beat the majority of fighters. And Williams is big, he just needs to learn just a few things.

1. Perfect the goddamn jab.
2. Perfect the defense which works for his height (not James Toney's height.)
3. Learn to counter the goddamn overhand left.

He's a very strong fighter who got beat by one punch. He didn't get dominated by Lara or Martinez physically, he got beat tactically. He needs to start using his height as a tactic the same way they use that overhand left.

 

Williams is a brilliant inside fighter, just like James Toney.

If everybody fought Williams on the inside, everybody would lose just like anyone would lose fighting James Toney on the inside.

Watch the fights that Williams lost. He never got dominated on the inside by anyone. In fact the only way to beat him is from the outside and by timing him with wide looping shots, or with the overhand left.

 

Who landed a right hook on Williams on the inside?

Williams was beating the **** out of Lara and Martinez on the inside. Did we see the same fight?

Williams was hitting Lara with 4-5 hooks to the head and body at a time, uppercutting him from odd angles, and just generally beating the **** out of him on the inside.

So what did Lara do? He adapted by fighting on the outside which is why Peterson said he was running around the ring. Yeah he was running around the ring because Williams is actually a talented inside fighter. Quintana ended up running around the ring and so did Martinez, but what they did right is they didn't back straight up. They backed up to the side and timed the overhand left.

Williams should watch the tapes. They knew he would come forward with his chin out fighting small, and simply timed him knowing where his chin would be.