It’s almost perplexing to hear Paul Williams talk about his upset loss to Carlos Quintana on Feb. 9 in Temecula, Calif.
“I just didn’t get in my rhythm last time,” Williams said last week during a conference call promoting his rematch with Quintana on Saturday in Uncasville, Conn. Showtime will televise.
Williams, a 6-foot-2 southpaw, said he was not sapped of energy because he had to make the 147-pound welterweight limit. He also said this, when asked if he overtrained or took Quintana lightly.
“That’s the thing about it. I just couldn’t get into my rhythm,” Williams said.
Asked when he knew he was out of whack, Williams again mentioned that word.
“I thought about it in the first round,” he said. “I couldn’t get in my rhythm. He knows it, too. You have to work through it. … It prevented me from doing everything, how I normally fight. I just couldn’t get into rhythm.”
Williams wasn’t done. Asked to clarify, there again came that six-letter word.
“Yeah, I wasn’t in my rhythm,” he said. “This time, I just don’t know what it was. I couldn’t do it like I could before.”
He meant like he did it with Antonio Margarito last July when he took the welterweight championship from the Mexican at Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif. The thing is Williams is obviously stuck on this “rhythm” thing. And it was interesting that even his promoter didn’t sound too sure if that was the problem four months ago when Quintana beat heavily favored Williams by two, four and four points. Quintana took the title Williams won from Margarito.
Dan Goossen, president of Goossen Tutor Promotions, was asked if he believed Williams’ weight to be a concern. Goossen said he asked Williams and his team if they wanted to move up in weight and they declined and said the loss had nothing to do with a weight problem.
Goossen said Williams (33-1, 24 KOs) then needs to show that the loss was about nothing more than that dreaded word that we never want to hear again after today.
“It was a Williams that none of us had seen before, expected to see that night,” Goossen said. “Come next week, he has to go out there and show that that’s exactly why he lost. His actions next Saturday will dictate where everything is, if the weight was good, bad, or if it was a rhythm problem or just a Quintana problem.”
Well, here’s the thing: As one who reported on that fight from just a few feet away from the ring, it’s absolutely true that Williams never got into a – gasp! – rhythm. (Where is a thesaurus when you need one?). But Williams seems to want to suggest it was because he was just off that night.
This is where he is making his biggest mistake heading into the rematch. It was because of Quintana (25-1, 19 KOs), a fellow southpaw, that Williams could not get into the swing of things. Quintana would get inside, which he was not supposed to be able to do because he is at least 4 1/2 inches shorter, and quickly do his damage and then step back and get out of harms’ way.
In other words, he got in his licks and did not stand around to admire his work. It was a simple, yet brilliant, way to befuddle Williams. And unless Williams and his trainer have picked up on this, Quintana is liable to do the same thing Saturday and successfully defend his title.
Remember, Quintana is no bum. He has just one loss in his career and that was to Miguel Cotto when he could not answer the bell for the sixth round of their fight in December 2006. There is no shame there as Cotto is one of the very best pound-for-pound fighters in the world.
Quintana can fight and if Williams goes into this return bout thinking that he lost simply because he had an off night and not because of anything Quintana did, then he will lose again.
Williams’ trainer, George Peterson, might not be helping matters with some of his comments.
“It was just a night when Williams wasn’t on point,” he said. “There are times when you see Michael Jordan or any athlete have an off day.”
One has to wonder if all this talk by most of the Williams camp is only providing Quintana incentive. We say most of the Williams camp because Goossen seems to be the one who is leaving open the idea that Quintana could have had something to do with Williams being unable to get into a flow.
Alas, Quintana enters the fight as the champion, but also as the underdog. You bet he has noticed what Team Williams is saying.
“I feel like the respect people give me is not the respect I deserve,” Quintana said Tuesday. “I feel like I have to go out there and prove myself on June 7 once again.”
Quintana said he thought Williams might have taken him lightly the first time around. He intimated he is expecting a better Williams.
“I am stronger and my training has been more intense than it was for the first fight,” Quintana said.
He means the one when Williams couldn’t find his rhythm. Something Williams vowed will not happen again. He would not, however, tell us how he plans on keeping his cadence.
“You’ll see it on the 7th,” he said. “When I get into the ring, you’ll see the difference.”
We’ll see if Williams gets his groove back.