Making a Tough Prediction

Tonight Sergio Martinez (45-2-2) and Paul Williams (39-1) will rematch, with the middleweight championship of the world at stake. Their first fight was a split decision, with Williams coming out on top. Going into their first fight, Williams was expected to win and this may have impacted the judging. One blind judge scored the fight 119-109 for Williams, maybe he filled out his scorecard before the fight started. I scored it 116-115 for Williams, but truly it could have gone either way. Williams landed more punches, Martinez did more damage.

Since that fight, Williams had a lackluster performance against Kermit Cintron. I didn't think Williams looked powerful or accurate on that night, a contest that ended in the 4th round when an off-balance Cintron jumped out of the ring and claimed to hit his head. I shouldn't blame Williams for the brutal result of that fight, but the truth is, he wasn't doing much to Cintron and the fight was boring. Martinez, for his part, had a great fight with Kelly Pavlik in April. He was accurate, he was fast, and he was well-conditioned enough to win all of the late rounds of that fight to take Pavlik's title.

I see this fight as once again being very competitive, and very difficult to call. But I'm going to go with Martinez, mostly because I feel like he needs it more. He's a proud Argentinian warrior whose time to make a name for himself, and to make money, is now. Many people feel he was robbed in the first fight, and I think he'll be fighting to redeem himself and to again expose Williams' defensive weakness. After watching about 5 Paul Williams fights, I have to say that his defense is pretty bad. He's been hit hard in nearly all of his fights and I think that tonight will be another one. I look for Sergio Martinez to do more damage to Paul Williams than Williams will do to him. Williams has superhuman stamina so I expect it to go the full 12, but I'm taking Martinez (which would mean a win for Oro's Team Tyson's Punchout and a loss for Andrew's Money Marenghi) to win an action-packed 12 round decision!