LENNY DAWS TKO end of 10 (cut eye) STEVE WILLIAMS

In a curious finish, Steve Williams, only narrowly behind in the scoring, was retired by his corner after 10 rounds in a game challenge for the British light-welter title against the much more experienced Lenny Daws.
 
Williams, in just his 10th fight, had just enjoyed his biggest round of the fight in the 10th. He was, however, cut badly over the right eye and, with two rounds remaining, his promoter, Tommy Gilmour, got up on the ring apron in Williams’s corner to tell the seconds to pull the plug.
 
At the time, unbeknownst to the Williams corner, the underdog challenger was trailing by one point on two judges’ cards and two points on the third card. Daws seemed to be fading just a bit in the 10th, perhaps unsurprising in view of his workrate and the 94-degree heat at ringside at a sweltering York Hall.
 
If Williams had been permitted to stay in the fight, if he could have kept the punches coming in the last two rounds the way he had in the 10th, he could have won. “If” and “could have”, the words that take on a sad meaning for the loser in fights such as this one.
 
I suppose it could be said that the way the fight ended makes a case for open scoring, which has its advocates. Had the Williams camp know that their man was very much in the fight, perhaps they might have allowed him to continue. Daws, though, is an experienced professional and I think he would probably have dug deep and gritted out the win had the fight entered the 11th. After his customary slow start, Daws seemed to be finding the answers to everything Williams attempted. Still, Daws had to fight for the win. Williams took the fight to him, jabbing his way in, hooking to the body, giving his all, and he almost knocked Daws’s gum shield from his mouth with a right-hander in the third. Gradually, though, Daws asserted himself, jabbing, hooking and putting some shots together. He was a bit more accurate, steadier, smarter. 
 
Williams’s boxing started to fall apart a little when he was cut over the right eye from a clash of heads in the fifth round. Blood was flowing in the eighth, and now Williams was cut on the bridge of the nose, too. I thought that Daws shook the challenger with a left hook followed by a right hand in the closing stages of the 10th. Perhaps it was these two punches that influenced Tommy Gilmour’s decision to advise the retirement, although referee Ian John-Lewis, who seemed to be well aware that the fight was very close, seemed to be giving the corner every chance to rethink their decision: “Are you sure? It’s a title fight.”
 
The championship fight came a bit too early for Williams, perhaps, but if Daws had been cut, and not the challenger, there could have been a different outcome. There are those words again: “Could have.”