Why we watch the fights

Maybe it wasn’t the best fight of the year, or maybe it was. What Paul Williams and Sergio Martinez did Saturday, though, deserves an award of some sort. How about favorite fight of the year? The one that, when considered as a 36-minute body of work, brings back the most complete feelings of satisfaction to those who saw it.

The best part? On paper, it wasn’t supposed to be that good. An underappreciated black American volume puncher from Georgia and a barely known Argentinean southpaw from Spain, fighting on short notice, before fewer than 2,000 paying customers in New Jersey. Go ahead and try to sell that mess.

Yet it was magic. The rematch will sell itself.

Saturday in Atlantic City, Williams and Martinez battled for no title whatever in a middleweight match that Williams ultimately won by majority-decision scores of 114-114, 115-113 and 119-110. It was a fight cobbled together after middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik, citing a staph infection, broke two contracts with Williams – the owner of boxing’s least-desired title, “Most Avoided Fighter.”

The fight was very close; scorekeepers needed to check their biases throughout. Judge Pierre Benoist did nothing of the sort, 119-110. He should be made to account for his card, even if the accounting comprises only a statement like: “Each round was tight, but Williams won 1:31 of every three-minute stanza but two.” Otherwise, his 10-1-1 card retains its sinister air.

My card probably overcorrected for bias. As an unapologetic proponent of action fighters, preferring ineffective aggressiveness to everything but effective aggressiveness, I went out of my way to account for solid counterpunches. Too, I tried not to give my countryman the benefit of every doubt.

I had it 115-114 for Martinez. Rounds 2, 3, 7, 8, 10 and 11 went to him. Rounds 4, 5, 6, 9 and 12 went to Williams. The first round, which saw each man felled once, I scored even, 10-10.

That’s that. Now I quietly close the Scorecard.xls file on my laptop and set about the task of honoring Williams-Martinez. For like so many things boxing officials do, Saturday’s judging is less than a footnote. The fight itself was a treat. So what if the genuine tension ceased at the final bell?

It almost ceased moments after the opening bell, didn’t it? Williams came out ferocious as he’s been since Carlos Quintana. He looked much taller than 6 foot 2, and Martinez looked like a gladiator fleeing a lion. A Williams left cross, thrown from his gangly southpaw stance, bounced off Martinez’s lead right shoulder (southpaw as well) and skipped off his temple, compromising his balance and shoving him to the canvas. Martinez quickly stood, composed.

Williams was not. He attacked like Robitussin on a cough – as Big Daddy Kane once put it. He closed all sorts of space, got way over his front foot, razed his advantage of stature and ran into a right hook. Down went Williams. Not from a balance shot but a punch consequential enough to undo the preceding 2:58 and a knockdown.

Judge Benoist actually got this round right, scoring it even while his companions saw it 10-9 for Williams. Benoist got the next round right, too, scoring it 10-9 for Martinez. Then Benoist decided to show empathy to Texas judge Gale Van Hoy – deserving a transitive verb of his own if only we could be sure of how to conjugate “to Benoist.”

After flattening Williams at the end of the first round, Martinez went sweet scientist for the next six minutes. With excellent advice from his corner, he used a visual trick on Williams. Martinez drew his hands in. Williams’ punches, a perfect length in the beginning, were suddenly wrong. They were too short. Then Williams recalibrated his cross by lowering his left glove. Then Martinez pasted him with right hooks over his lowered guard. Martinez couldn’t miss.

So Williams put the ‘will’ in P-Will. Blood running into both eyes, his hapless corner fixating on why-didn’t-you’s instead of next-time-do’s, or cuts, Williams trusted his size and conditioning and just kept stalking his emboldened foe. Williams was not accurate. His defense was suspect, chin high and hands low, but he kept faith Martinez’s fitness would not hold up.

Martinez doubted Williams’ fitness right back. That’s what made the fight special.

The best matches happen when neither guy respects the other’s power, when both guys square up and each knows the other cannot take his best shot. This was a variation on that: I know I am the only man who can sustain a pace for 12 rounds, so we’re going to do this thing, and I’m going to watch you wilt. Except neither did. Not quite.

The reason this was maybe not the best fight of the year was because it ended indecisively with two world-class fighters missing more punches than they landed. It ended with fatigue undoing class.

But it was still such a fight. Such a joy! Such a list of reasons why no one wanted to fight these guys at 154 pounds.

Afterwards, Williams’ promoter feinted at Bernard Hopkins, while Martinez’s promoter made threats about Kelly Pavlik. Forget it, guys. Hopkins would add 20 pounds to Martinez’s right hooks and land them as easily. Pavlik’s right cross on Martinez would make Williams’ left feel like a love tap. Those fights are all wrong.

A rematch is all right. Williams and Martinez deserve a bigger audience and larger purses. The rest of us deserve more enjoyment.

One last thing. By way of a preview for next week’s Diaz-Malignaggi rematch, let’s pause to acknowledge the comparative dignity of Sergio Martinez’s reaction to Saturday’s wayward scorecard. No calling-out the state of New Jersey, no “vos dije! vos dije!”, no victimhood. Just a simple “I believe it was an error.” Makes you think Madrid might be a friendlier place to live than Brooklyn.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter.com/bartbarry

Photo by Claudia Bocanegra