Lenny Daws beats Steve Williams
It was a comfortable night’s work for Lenny Daws at York Hall on Friday, as he came through challenger Steve Williams inside the distance to maintain his British light-welterweight belt.
The Londoner made his traditional snail-paced start, taking three rounds to find his mojo, while Williams came out swinging and slugging on the inside, looking for a way in and very nearly finding one with an aggressive opening on the front foot.
However by the fourth round the champion clicked and didn’t look back. “Lightning Lenny’s” left jab started working and he punished Williams for getting into close. It was all Daws and he began to outclass his opponent with some nimble footwork and well controlled counters. A huge cut started to open up above the challenger’s eye and Daws started working at it in gruesome fashion as it began to resemble something from out of one of Wes Craven’s nightmares.
Fair play to Williams, he kept slugging and worked his socks off for the full duration. Unfortunately in Daws he came across a competitor who knew all the tricks, as he picked off Williams from the outside and absorbed a lot of the challengers’ energy –sapping, big shots in his gloves.
Lightning Lenny did have a storm to weather though as Williams showed tremendous character and almost boxed his way back in a number of times as the champion began to wilt in the heat of a sweaty York Hall.
Unfortunately the tremendous punishment Williams had taken began to get to him and after a brutal 10th round, the Mersysider and his corner decide enough was enough and called it a day.
It was a more than decent effort from the challenger, a whole-hearted display, he put it all on the line but Daws was just about able to pick him off. There’s no doubt that the British champion would have come away from this well aware he had been in a tear-up, but experience prevailed in the end.
Special mention also has to go to the heat. It was a tremendously hot night and you could see the effect it was having on the pugilists. Although it was the same for both fighters, Williams’ intense front-foot slugging style is a real energy sapper and so he would have really been feeling it, especially when you consider he has never been 10 rounds before. Yet he looks a talented forward-thinking fighter who wasn’t scared to go in there and throw big shots.
Williams said prior to this fight he would retire if he lost, using this match-up as a sort of acid test for potential. Hopefully he will rethink that because he certainly has something to offer, an entertaining fighter who has reached this level on his 10th fight could have a great future in the sport.
As for Daws he needs one more win so he can keep his Lonsdale belt. He will be more than aware at how tight the light-welterweight division is at the moment. At 31 he can’t hang around forever and maybe he has half an eye on EBU champion Paul McCloskey who looked far from incredible in his last outing against Giuseppe Lauri.
A decent future should await Williams if he continues and grows as a boxer, but unfortunately for him Lightning Lenny struck with just enough zap to curtail his British title ambitions this time.
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