By CompuBox

For months Paul Williams thought he was fighting fellow high-octane fighter Kelly Pavlik for a middleweight title but a recurring staph infection scuttled his date with destiny. Instead of the right-handed power punching Pavlik, Williams will face southpaw trickster Sergio Martinez. Who will prevail in this crossroads contest? The numbers might provide a clue.

Fast break versus four corners: If Williams were a basketball coach he’d be Paul Westhead, the architect of Loyola-Marymount’s offensive juggernaut of the early 1990s. His teams’ relentless pressure on offense and defense often ran rivals off the court while “The Punisher” does the same to those who let him fight his fight. Williams averaged 90.5 punches per round against Winky Wright and 85.2 against Verno Phillips, far above the 58.8 junior middleweight norm and even more so above the 56.5 middleweight average. Though his connect percentages against Wright (23) and Williams (33) weren’t great, his attack allowed him to pile up advantages of 247-116 (overall) and 177-76 (power) against Wright and 227-91 (overall) and 210-88 (power) against Phillips. It also doesn’t help the 34-year-old Martinez that Williams feasted on a 37-year-old Wright and a 38-year-old Phillips.

While Williams lights up the scoreboard, Martinez’s game resembles that of Pete Carrill. His Princeton teams used superior footwork, crisp passes, solid defense and a slow-down approach to tie frustrated foes into knots. Martinez averaged 46.5 punches to Kermit Cintron’s 44.5, yet amassed connect advantages of 151-103 overall and 98-52 in power shots in a draw many thought he won. Even the most patient teams can burn it up against out-classed foes. Martinez averaged 64.8 punches per round in stopping Alex Bunema in eight, out-landing him 212-31 overall, out-jabbing him 101-12 and landing 48 percent of his power shots in amassing a 111-19 bulge.

Making Adjustments: The battle lines are well defined but so are the antidotes. Carlos Quintana, a southpaw like Martinez, neutralized Williams with footwork and counter-punching. Despite throwing 203 fewer punches (596-799), 96 fewer jabs (227-323) and 107 less power shots (369-476), Quintana out-landed Williams 203-157, out-jabbed him 60-53 and built a 143-104 edge in power connects. Quintana’s sharpness inhibited Williams’ from firing and the result was a dismal (for him) 66.6 per-round output.

Martinez’s only defeat was against Antonio Margarito, the record-holder for most punches thrown in a 12-round fight tracked by CompuBox (1,675 against Quintana) and the man from whom Williams won the WBO welterweight title. Martinez’s sharpness and movement won him the first two rounds and kept Margarito in the 50s in punch output. But when Margarito turned up the juice starting in round three, Martinez couldn’t keep up and was eventually overpowered. In the culminating seventh, Margarito was 43 of 115 to Martinez’s 12 of 39.

Williams’ punch output also blunts his opponents attack.  Wright averaged just 42 punches thrown per round vs. Williams after getting off 61 per round in his previous seven fights.  Williams averaged 105 punches thrown per round in his win over Antonio Margarito, who holds the CompuBox record for most punches thrown in a fight, 1675, vs. Joshua Clottey (that’s an average of 140 thrown per round). What did Margarito average vs. Williams?- 54 thrown per round.

Prediction: Martinez’s loss to Margarito showed his vulnerability to physically strong volume punchers and Williams is the best numbers guy in the game today. Whoever imposes his style on the other will win and it’s more likely that Williams will be that man. Williams UD 12.