Martinez stuns Williams to keep middleweight crown

By John McMullen

Atlantic City, NJ (The Phan) - Sergio Martinez wasn't about to let the judges decide anything on Saturday night.

The reigning WBC middleweight champion knocked Paul Williams cold at 1:10 of the second round with a left hook to defend his crown. Williams remained on the canvas for several minutes before regaining his faculties.

“That was one of the great knockout punches I’ve ever seen,” said Lou DiBella, Martinez’s promoter. “That punch would have knocked out anyone on Earth.” 

Williams (39-2) and Martinez (46-2-2, 25 KOs) had dueled in a classic 12-round slugfest last December in Atlantic City. When that one was over, it was Williams who could breathe a sigh of relief thanks to judge Pierre Benoist, earning a majority decision over Martinez with Benoist inexplicably scoring the razor-close fight 119-110 in favor of Williams.  Judge Lynne Carter scored that fight 115-113 for Williams and Julie Lederman had the bout 114-114. The Phanatic Magazine also scored it 114-114 at ringside.

Benoist's strange scorecard especially upset DiBella, who exploded after the announcement.

"Either he's incompetent -- or worse," DiBella said of Benoist, "because there is no explanation for that score. I'm not going to cry because I had my guy winning by one point but come on. That's corrupt. I'm glad I don't know what he looks like because I might punch him myself."

Despite the win it was Williams, who only fought Martinez after a planned bout against then-middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik was postponed twice, that was the stepping stone. The Argentine was given a championship fight against Pavlik in Atlantic City last April and won the crown with a unanimous decision.

Saturday, Martinez was given a chance at redemption against "The Punisher" and seized it. An athletic
left-hander with a non-stop motor and awkward style, Williams failed to take advantage of 82-inch reach, which is two inches greater than 6-foot-7 World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko and just three inches shy than the 85-inch reach of 7-footer Nikolai Valuev. Instead, Williams pressed the issue inside and was caught by a powerful Martinez left hook before crumbling to that mat as the stunned crowd roared.

"I just got caught with a good punch," Williams said. "That's all. I knew it was going to be a tough fight."

In other bouts on the card, Hungarian star Zsolt Erdei (31-0 17 KOs), the former WBO light heavyweight and WBC cruiserweight king, returned to the squared circle after a short retirement and nearly a year of inactivity to win an eight-round unanimous decision over Kenya's Samson Onyango (20-7).

The 36-year-old Erdei, who is regarded as Hungary's most famous athlete, was fighting in America for just the third time and the first since a 2002 bout in Atlantic City. A very vocal fan base that filled one section of the upper deck followed Erdei to the shore and the fundamentally sound veteran dominated the fight but didn't show all that much power, failing to finish off Onyango.

Erdei won easily on all three scorecards, 79-73, 80-72 and 80-72, however, and now plans to move his wife and son to New York in preparation for his next fight, which he hopes will be against a bigger name like Chad Dawson or Bernard Hopkins. The Phanatic Magazine scored the bout 80-72 in favor of Erdei.

In a swing bout before the main event Philadelphia welterweight Steve Upsher Chambers (23-1-1, 6 KOs) showed little but won a split decision over Bayan Jargal, a Mongolian fighting out of Virginia. Jargal (15-1) clearly pushed the action throughout the fight but Upsher Chambers took two of the three scorecards. John McKale scored it 77-75 and Ronald McNair had it 78-74 in favor of Upsher Chambers while Joseph Pasquale had it 77-75 for Jargal. The crowd booed the result and considering Upsher Chambers is a Philly native that speaks volumes about the judging. The Phanatic Magazine scored the fight 78-74 in favor of Jargal.

In heavyweight action, veteran Tony "The Tiger" Thompson (35-2 23 KOs) bruised and battered an overmatched Paul Marinaccio (24-6-3) before referee David Fields mercifully stepped in to stop things at 2:02 of the fourth round. Thompson was pitching a shutout all three scorecards before the stoppage.

Meanwhile, undefeated NABF middleweight champion Fernando Guerrero (20-0,16 KOs) stayed perfect with a TKO of Saul Duran (36-18-3). Guerrero was able to use his superior strength to get inside on Duran time-and-time again before the Mexican veteran wilted and Ricardo Vera waived it off at 1:06 of the
fourth round.

Also, another unblemished fighter stayed that way when New York state featherweight champ Luis Del Valle (11-0, 9 KOs) stopped Mexican journeyman Noe Lopez Jr. (6-7, 4 KOs) at 1:48 of the third round, and Cleveland welterweight Willie Nelson (16-0-1, 10 KOs) opened the night by dispensing of San Antonio's Quinton Whitaker (7-9) also in Round 3.