By: William Holmes
Showtime had back to back fight nights this weekend, and the card on Saturday featured two of boxing’s biggest stars that are chomping at the bit for a marquee matchup. Paul Williams proved that he is deserving of such a matchup, Tavoris Cloud however, was lucky to retain his belt.
Chris Arreola was featured on the undercard, and as expected, made very quick work of Eric Molina. Arreola scored a first round knockout with only thirty seconds left, and ended the fight with a right hand to the temple of Molina. Molinda went down, and was unable to answer the ten count.
Tavoris Cloud started off fast, knocking down Gabriel Campillo twice in the first round to score a 10-7 round. Campillo was able to bounce back and regain his composure, and took over the fight from Tavoris Cloud. Cloud suffered a cut in the fourth round, and was badly out punched throughout the remainder of the fight. Campillo landed 148 power punches in comparison to Cloud’s 71. Despite landing over double the amount of power punches, Cloud scored the decision victory with scores 116-110, 114-112, and one dissenting, but most likely correct score of 115-111 for Campillo. The crowd booed loudly at the announcing of the score.
Afterwards, Showtime analyst Al Bernstein stated, “How this fight could be scored 116-110 on a judge’s scorecard is beyond comprehension. It’s one of the most egregious decisions I’ve ever seen.”
Both fighters also gave quotes to the press. “I feel like I won the fight,” said Cloud. “I knocked him down a few times and was the aggressor throughout. I wanted to put him away but sometimes you get it and sometimes you don’t.
“I wanted to stay busy and be aggressive. I did that. He was a busy fighter, and that’s what the crowd here in Corpus Christi responded to. The difference is I was landing the power shots, and that’s what the judges responded to.”
“I’m disappointed,” said Campillo. “This was one of the best fights of my career but this is not the first time it’s happened to me. He won the first but after that I dominated. I won the fight no question.”
Clearly a rematch is in order.
Paul Williams returned to his old form, and used a tremendous work rate and high volume of punches to wear down Nobuhiro Ishida. The fight featured no knockdowns, but it was old school Paul Williams as he threw 934 punches in the fight and simply battered his opponent. He won a clean sweep on the judges score cards with official scores of 120-108 three times. Very few fighters can throw the volume of punches that Paul Williams throws, and if he can in future fights like he did tonight, he’ll remain a serious contender in the junior middleweight division. Hopefully he’ll stay there and not bounce up or down to the middleweight and welterweight divisions.
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