AARON WILLIAMS vs JOSE LUIS HERRERA

After his exciting win over Andre Purlette last month, Aaron Williams left us wanting to see more of him. We get the chance on Friday Night Fights when the Las Vegas-based cruiserweight prospect meets Colombian Jose Luis Herrera in a scheduled 10-rounder.

Williams had the perfect opponent in the veteran Purlette, someone who took the fight to him and was wide open to counter punches. He was able to land some big shots and the 35-year-old Purlette, never known for having a good chin, was soon in trouble.

The 22-year-old Williams is trained by ex-champ Eddie Mustafa Muhammad in Las Vegas. He had a good amateur background, winning national tournaments and boxing in the Olympic trials, when he lost to Devin Vargas. He showed skills as well as punching power against Purlette, rolling with punches while backed up on the ropes, then countering after making his opponent miss.

Herrera, 28, is heavy handed, with 15 KO wins, but he does not take a punch too well, with four losses inside the distance — none of his fights has gone the limit.

Herrera’s biggest win came when he stopped two-time world champion Jorge Castro in Argentina, but his opponent was returning to the ring after being injured in a car crash. In a rematch, a much better-prepared Castro stopped Herrera in two rounds.

I saw Herrera in the ShoBox 168-pound tournament, when he was stopped in the fifth round by the hard-hitting Lafarell Bunting a couple of years ago. That was always likely to be a fight that would be won by the boxer who was the first to land a big punch, and Bunting landed it with the fight evenly balanced. Herrera looked slow and a bit crude, but Bunting always seemed very aware of the Colombian’s punching power.

The unbeaten Chicago prospect Tavoris Cloud stopped Herrera in the fifth round in August, but the Colombian had an excellent win in his last fight when he stopped former world title challenger George Blades in the third round, quite an upset as Blades had been 11 rounds against WBO champion Zsolt Erdei in Hungary.

That win should have lifted Herrera’s confidence. Initially I was expecting Herrera to try to put pressure on Williams and seek to back him up on the ropes, but the Colombian was not particularly aggressive in the fight with Bunting, moving in but not really taking any chances, while against Cloud he was backing away for almost the entire fight and looking to catch his opponent as the Chicago fighter came to him. Cloud was much too skilled and fast punching for Herrera, and he ended the fight with some impressive combinations.

We have already seen that Williams can be highly effective against a fighter who comes straight at him, and if Herrera boxes as he did against Cloud, hands up, moving back, trying to get in a big punch every so often, I think that he will eventually get caught himself because Williams's hand speed is so superior.

I think that Williams has every chance of scoring his second successive impressive stoppage win on Friday Night Fights. He will have to be a bit careful not to get hit by a big swing or hook, but he looks a much better, faster boxer than Herrera and I believe he will find openings and land enough sharp, classy punches to end this fight by the sixth round.

RESULT: Herrera KO5 — but he was down and nearly out in the first round.