It’s good to be the champ. Depending on how the role's played, being an uncrowned champion can be pretty good too. It’s all just a matter of making it matter.
Former welterweight titlist and leading middleweight contender Paul Williams (38-1, 27 KO) isn't a champion right now. He wanted to be. He came close to securing an opportunity to become the 160-pound king in 2009. A staph infection to the right hand of then-champion Kelly Pavlik derailed a planned title shot last December for “The Punisher” and, to his credit, Williams did the sort of thing boxing fans ask for often, but don’t get often enough.
With a high stakes fight still possible, he stepped in with the sort of legitimate threat who could knock him off course. WBC junior middleweight titlist Sergio Martinez, while still imprinting himself on the American fight conscious at the time, had shown more than enough in two memorable HBO appearances to fit the bill.
Together they made a classic. Both down in the first, Williams would narrowly outpoint Martinez by majority decision, maintaining his place as the leading threat to Pavlik. A showdown seemed obvious.
Williams makes his first start since then this Saturday night. A showdown with the middleweight champion is still obvious.
However, the champ isn’t Pavlik anymore.
In one of those turns of fate that can frustrate an individual fighter while providing entertaining possibilities for the fans, the hostile state of negotiations for Pavlik-Williams pushed Martinez to the front of the line for a title shot. The Argentine made the most of it, belting Pavlik more than plenty to take a decision just a few weeks ago.
For those who favored Martinez over Williams as a winner despite the decision, it was poetic justice. For Williams and those who thought he earned his Martinez win, it elevated him to the status of ‘uncrowned middleweight champion.’
None of it will matter if Williams fails to win this weekend. Facing another former welterweight titlist, Kermit Cintron (32-2-1, 28 KO), at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California, on HBO, the pressure couldn’t be higher to deliver win No. 39. Uncrowned champions don’t last long with losses after all.
With a win, Williams can maintain the position he should be taking in public to anyone. He's the man who beat the man. He just beat the man a little early. He’s not the first to be there.
In 1936, Max Schmeling knocked out the young Joe Louis only to watch Louis go on to win the title the following year. The ‘uncrowned’ champ and the reigning king, with a little help from a globe on the brink of World War, smashed the box office even as Louis memorably smashed Schmeling in the first. It’s probably not the first example Williams would look to, but the paycheck wouldn’t be bad either way.
While he never got the direct shot he deserved, Sugar Ray Robinson’s many wins in the early 1940s had him seen as the 'uncrowned' king even as Freddie Cochrane took the welterweight title with him into war service. Cochrane lost the title when he came home, to Marty Servo in 1946. Having lost twice to Robinson in 1941 and 42, Servo retired briefly without defending towards what would have been loss No. 3. Robinson emerged as first in line to fight for the vacant title and finally upended Tommy Bell in December 1946 for the honors.
Before his Hall of Fame title reign, Marvin Hagler had his own time spent as 'uncrowned' king. In 1979, on the undercard of Sugar Ray Leonard-Wilfred Benitez, Hagler was left with a draw after what appeared to be a clear 15-round win over middleweight champion Vito Antufermo. The outcry about the decision meant he didn’t wait long for his second chance, stopping Antufermo’s conqueror Alan Minter for the title in 1980 and securing his own knockout revenge on Antufermo in 1981.
All of these men, in their own way, made being 'uncrowned' matter. If Williams can do so, a Martinez rematch is within reach. However, he needs to find a way to put pressure on the timing.
As noted earlier in the week in an interview with Martinez’s promoter Lou DiBella, a rematch in 2010 may be made to marinate. “I think that it’s possible. As Martinez’s promoter, I know Sergio would fight King Kong. He doesn’t give a s&^%. Sergio knows that this is his time. He believes he’s capable of beating anybody. I don’t like the idea of him going from Williams to Pavlik to Williams fight after fight after fight. As his promoter, I think it would be ridiculous for him to do that.”
Later in the conversation, DiBella added, “I think a Williams fight with Sergio is a very big fight, but frankly a year, year and a half, from now it might be one of the biggest fights in all of boxing.”
The longer Williams is made to wait, the more impressive he can be in winning while he does, the louder the cry for resolution will become. For now, Martinez is the champion, but he can never truly feel secure in that spot until he puts the uncrowned champion behind him.
Every punch Williams throws should have that insecurity in mind.
