PAUL WILLIAMS TKO end of 8 VERNO PHILLIPS

The loss to Carlos Quintana looks more than ever difficult to understand after the way that Paul Williams overran Verno Phillips in HBO’s main event on Saturday.

I think we now have to believe Williams when he says that it wasn’t really him when he showed up for the Quintana fight.

He went a long way to restoring his credibility when he wiped out Quintana in one round in the rematch, and now he is once again living up to promoter Dan Goossen’s billing of the world’s most feared fighter. As Max Kellerman remarked in the HBO commentary, Antonio Margarito, tough warrior that he is, hasn’t exactly been clamouring for a rematch with Williams.

The fight with Phillips, for the WBO’s interim junior middle title, showed what makes Williams such a difficult proposition. The height, reach and southpaw stance are just part of it. Williams is the type who actually seems to enjoy it when he’s in the thick of a tough fight. It must be very discouraging to fight him. Phillips discovered this. He hit Williams with some good shots, and Williams just came steaming back at him.

Phillips knows how to box and move, but it was as if Williams was right there, right on top of him, no matter which way he went.

The body battering was taking its toll very early in the fight, I thought, in particular the right hooks that Williams slammed into Phillips’s left side. The cut that Williams suffered over his right eye from a clash of heads just didn’t seem to bother him. He wiped away the blood and kept marching in. Phillips is as game as they come, but he really seemed to be suffering at times, taking deep breaths every so often. His only hope was that Williams might slow down, but it wasn’t going to happen.

I noticed that referee Jon Schorle, who does not believe in fighters taking unnecessary punishment, was watching Phillips closely in the seventh round. It was no surprise then, when the referee, in conjunction with the doctor, decided that the veteran (39 on the day of the bout) should be pulled out after the eighth. With four rounds to go, Phillips sucking in air and Williams in full flow and punching like a machine, there was no point in letting the fight continue.

This was an excellent performance by Williams against a fighter who had only been stopped once, and that a long time ago. True, Williams got hit quite a lot, but he was willing to take some shots to get the job done inside the distance — and also to provide entertainment. This was a crowd-pleasing display that will enhance Williams’s reputation. Any ground that he lost in the shocking defeat against Quintana has been regained, with interest.

The heavyweight chief supporting fight between Chris Arreola and Travis Walker was, as expected, fun while it lasted. Arreola took a lot of shots before turning things around for a thrilling third-round win, but honestly, I never saw him as being in all that much danger of losing. He was clear-eyed and alert under pressure, and I had the sense that he was just waiting to get a clean shot at Walker’s chin. Once that happened, the fight was as good as over.

Although Arreola took a knee for an eight count in the second round, he was to hand out much more significant punishment when the fight resumed. Walker just fell apart as soon as he got hit, down twice in the second and again almost as soon as round three started.

For all his muscles, I fear that Walker, like his stablemate Raphael Butler, cannot take a punch very well at all. This seems to be a common trait with heavyweights who start boxing late after being successful in other sports — Michael Grant, of course, and Tye Fields come to mind.

Walker fought better than he has ever done for almost two full rounds, and he gave it his best shot — no one can take that away from him. Arreola looked very beatable, and I wondered what would have happened had a world-class puncher such as one of the Klitschko brothers or David Haye been in front of him. He does have a very good chin, though, and a lot of heart, and he has the instincts of a natural-born fighter. These assets were enough to get him through against the imposing but disturbingly fragile Walker; I fear they might not be enough at the higher level of heavyweight boxing.