Sergio Martinez vs. Richard Williams I & II: The Other Forgotten UK Maravilla-Williams Saga.

Long before Maravilla's epic two piece against Paul The Punisher Williams, he had a pair of matches against another somewhat touted Williams in the UK, that sadly few know about, after spending years fighting cab drivers with losing records in Argentina, he made his fateful US debut in early 2000 against another unknown commodity, that at the time had a far more impressive record, in The Tijuana Tornado Antonio Margarito. Well since he'd never shared the ring with someone near Margarito's level, he was eventually beaten into submission and stopped via TKO in the 7th round. Well he went back to Argentina to regroup and instead of giving up hope like so many Argentines who take an early loss do, he decided to relocate to Spain where he met trainer Pablo Sarmiento and hone his craft and perfect his quite unorthodox style. He racked up a few decent wins in Spain and was eventually brought in as a late replacement to face British Lght Middleweight Champion Richard Williams, sadly for the matchmakers, who were expecting the same average fighter with no gas tank that faced Margarito, they got an entirely different animal. They got quite a surprise, they got the new and improved Maravilla Martinez.

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Sergio Martinez vs. Richard Williams I 12 Rounds @ Light Middleweight, June 21, 2003

Round 1 Martinez 10-9 Sergio lands far more, although Richard gets in some good body work along ropes.
Round 2 Martinez 10-9 Sergio pretty much dominates entire round with jab and straight lefts.
Round 3 Williams 10-8 SM decides to trade and pays for it, gets dropped by straight right, he hops right back up.
Round 4 Martinez 10-9 Sergio popping him with the jab and straight lefts the whole round, all Maravilla.
Round 5 Martinez 10-9 Maravilla has showed up, he's starting showboat a little and landing in combination.
Round 6 Martinez 10-9 Sergio ripping him with lefts and right hooks, they trade bombs and rock each other late.
Round 7 Martinez 10-9 Closer round, but Martinez landed the heavier shots, he worked the body as well.
Round 8 Martinez 10-9 Richard charges him early, gets rocked back on heels, Sergio drops hands an dominates.
Round 9 Martinez 10-9 Williams goes all out early, eats 4 vicious punch combo, Sergio dominates the rest.
Round 10 Martinez 10-9 Williams lands a few hard rights early, Sergio takes over, unloads on tired Williams.
Round 11 9-9 Sergio dominating early, Williams lands temple shot, drops Sergio, SM rips him to pieces to the bell.
Round 12 Martinez 10-7 SM gets hit with low blow, comes back drops Williams, and beats him senseless to bell.

118-107 Sergio Martinez

One of my favorite Sergio Martinez matches, it was on the British undercard of the US Lennox Lewis vs. Vitali Klitschko card. Richard Williams was the IBO Light Middleweight champ, and a fairly solid solid British level LMW that they had really high hopes for, Sergio at the time was a relative unknown, everyone thought Richard Williams would railroad him, but this was Maravilla's true coming out party, he dominated Williams from bell to bell, aside from suffering two knockdowns, the first was from a solid straight right to the chest it appears, he bounced right back up unaffected, the second one was a glancing temple shot, but a legit KD, which he got up from and not only evened up the round, but came close to dropping Williams late himself. The last round I scored a rare 10-7 for me, since not only did Maravilla drop him, but when he got back up, he beat him from one side of the ring to the other, the ref was actually irresponsible in not stopping the fight, even without the knockdown it would have been a 10-8.

I've seen this match at least 4 times, and the absolute best part of it is the commentary from Adam Smith and Jim Watt, they're utterly perplexed, they're literally shocked at what they're seeing. instead of praising Martinez and his brilliant performance, they basically said he was just a so so fighter, so they had no idea what was wrong with Williams, they basically bounced theories off of each other the majority of the match like... Did he overtrain? Does he have a viral infection? Is he sick? Did he have troubles making the weight? No, he stays around 154 anyway, but, but but... what's wrong? Oh he's never looked this bad, he's lethargic, he looks dejected, dispirited, worn out, he looks like he wants to quick, clearly something must be really really wrong with Richard.... Yeah you mother****ers, he's getting his ass kicked by Maravilla Martinez. They went through every theory/excuse in the book, except for the obvious one. Occam's razor was very applicable here.

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Sergio Martinez vs. Richard Williams II 12 Rounds @ Light Middleweight, April 17, 2004

Round 1 Martinez 10-9 Back and forth round, Williams landing here and there, Sergio landed the harder shots.
Round 2 Martinez 10-9 Great lateral movement and clean crisp truly savage counter punches.
Round 3 Martinez 10-9 A little more rough and tumble, with more holding, but Martinez with the cleaner work.
Round 4 Martinez 10-9 Sergio opening up now landing check right hooks, and landing in combination.
Round 5 Martinez 10-9 Williams being more aggressive, Sergio becomes even more awkward and elusive.
Round 6 Martinez 10-9 A dominant one two festival from Maravilla, Williams has nothing for him.
Round 7 Martinez 10-9 Better cleaner work from Williams, but Sergio still outworked him by quite a margin.
Round 8 Martinez 10-9 Williams out aggressive, SM makes him pay, hurts him badly late, he's ready to go.
Round 9 Martinez 10-9 RW getting rocked left and right, lays on the ropes for a spell getting hit, he's mentally quit.

Williams retires on his stool.

Martinez wins by TKO9.


In retrospect a totally unnecessary rematch, but at the time, many thought Williams had just had an off night. Well Williams did come to the rematch better prepared, with better conditioning than the first time out, and seemed more focused. Sadly for him... so was Sergio Martinez, who was far more elusive and defensively sound, with better footwork, head movement, punch selection, angles, and overall far more dominant in every way than he was for the first fight, for which he was a late replacement in. He dominated from bell to bell, breaking the spirit and will of Williams, who looked utterly flabbergasted in 8th and 9th rounds, mentally broken and physically being torn apart, he quit on his stool. Unfortunately after these two bravura performances, which sandwiched yet another standout performance, in his domination of decent Brit fighter Adrian Stone, whose career Martinez ended, it would take him another 3 years to finally find his way back onto US soil, in his two appearances on a previous incarnation of NBC Sports Network called Versus, where he stopped Russell Jordan and Saul Roman relatively easily. Finally he made his debut on HBO where he dominated and stopped Bunema, then was mercilessly robbed in back to back matches against Cintron and The Punisher. Which set the course for the well known Maravilla-Williams Saga. After being ignored in Europe for years, he finally set things right with his brilliant victories over Pavlik via UD and Williams via KO2, to finally earn the recognition and the P4P standing that he so richly deserved.

 

Here's the Russian version of the rematch, the picture quality is a little better.

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Williams gave him a few issues the first time around dropping him twice, but still losing a clear decision, ironically it was Williams that was supposed to win that one, and Maravilla played the part of that one guy that was brought in to lose, and gave him hell.

 

And for those of you who haven't seen his matches against Paul Williams. Watch Them NOW.

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You beat me by a few years, the first time I saw him was on Versus against Jordan. I was an avid watcher of Versus (NBC Sports Network) at the time, they carried cycling as well. I missed the Bunema fight, but saw the Cintron fight live.

 

Since the P-Will-Margo thread has proved to be quite popular today, this one deserves a bump too.