By Ben Jacobs
Philadelphia's Julian Williams (17-0-1, 10 KOs) could have been content with his 2014 which thus far has included two knockouts in his three victories, yet the opportunity to fight one more time before the year ends provides him with another chance to show off his talents.
"I'm extremely pleased, Al Haymon always keeps me busy, he's always got a lot of dates. I'm super motivated, super ready to take advantage of my opportunity, 'J Rock' told BoxingScene.
Williams will face Mexico's Edgar Ortega (15-2, 10 KOs) on December 20 in Washington state, a fighter that he concedes he is not too familiar with but will study some of his tapes as he concludes his training camp, part of which took place in California. In his last outing, Julian outpointed Eliezer González in convincing fashion, although both he and his trainer, Stephen 'Breadman' Edwards, feel his display could have been better.
"I don't think it was one of my best performances, I think I could have done a lot of things differently," he admitted.
"I think I rushed a bit too much, but I'm still a young fighter and I'm still learning. I went back to the drawing board and I'm going to correct some of those things in this fight."
"I was pleased in the sense he got the victory," Edwards explained.
"I was pleased he did what he had to do. Sometimes a guy can just throw you off with little things and Julian still found a way to handle him. On a scale from one to ten that was a six performance. Although I knew he could have done better, he showed growth by having an off night and still handled the guy. If it would have been a 10 round fight I think he stops that kid, but they wanted to cram all of the fights in."
Williams arguably caught the attention of the wider boxing public when he battled fellow undefeated talent Hugo Centeno in 2013. The fight was declared a no-contest after an accidental clash of heads but Williams was performing very well and leading on all three scorecards before the bout prematurely ended. Following Centeno's impressive showing against James De la Rosa last weekend, a rematch will no doubt be in further demand from the fans.
"He fought the other night and everyone's on Twitter, they kind of hate him almost, I guess it's because of the situation that happened between me and him. I'm not mad that he's fighting on HBO, I want him to do good because that will make a good rematch, it's going to happen, eventually. I wish him the best in his career. If a rematch happens, it happens, if it doesn't, it doesn't. I can go on in my career and not feel bad about what happened because I know I came to fight that night. He knows what happened, he is the one who had to redeem himself. My career is going far and his is going good too so I wish him the best of luck."
Many in the game see Williams as a future star, possibly even a world title challenger within the next 12 months, therefore it is a surprise to see that he does not possess high rankings with the various sanctioning bodies. Edwards offered his opinions on that subject.
"I am surprised. He should be in the top 10 or 15 in all of the sanctioning bodies. It's ridiculous that only the WBC has him ranked. But things like that give him motivation. BoxRec has a system ranking that is not subjective and he's ranked really high. In fact, higher than anybody with 17 wins. He's eighth in the US and fifteenth in the world. But that will change next year. I expect him to explode and be a world champion next year."
