Bert Sugar muses about Sergio Martinez and Paul Williams
Bert Sugar, the man who has written over 80 books on professional boxing, has weighed in on Saturday’s bout between Sergio Martinez and Paul Williams.
In an interview with boxingscene.com, the old-school expert said that in their first fight he had Martinez winning, but that he thinks it will be different story the second time around.
He speculated that Saturday 20 November will be Williams’s opportunity to make a mark on an American audience, but that all of his muses will have to be aligned to overcome Martinez.
"Martinez is one heck of a fighter," Sugar said. "He’s the most unorthodox fighter I have seen since Prince Naseem. And he has power to boot. He took Pavlik apart. Martinez looks like he took a four-way cold tablet and he’s running three more ways to catch
up with it. I don’t know where he is in the ring and that’s what makes him exciting, interesting and fun to watch.
"This is a fight that Paul Williams has to make. This is his crossroads fight. He’s the bigger name, at least in America. There have been great hopes held for him and if he can’t come away from this fight with a win, then a lot of those hopes are going to
go away. Williams has more to lose than Martinez in this fight."
Another issue that experts have been considering is Martinez’s weight. Though the fight will be at the contracted 158-pound limit, Martinez weighed in at 177 at the 30-day weight-in. More recently, Martinez weighed in at 166 a week ago, meaning he still
has to drop nine pounds by Friday.
Posed with that situation and whether it will affect Martinez, Sugar said he "thinks it’s a problem," but added that while some fighters are seriously plagued by weight issues, others are able to work through them without much difficulty.
"Some fighters are drained by making weight. I don’t know enough about Martinez and his problems of late to know if it is a problem."
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