By Jake Donovan (photo by Paul Gallegos)
It never fails. A talented but unheralded fighter sets his sights on the division's best. No response is offered. Said fighter now becomes "the most feared man in boxing."
He gains a wave of momentum, thanks to overzealous publicists and enough pals in the media willing to take up the cause. He then lands a cushy time slot – perhaps his own headlining bout, or a perceived tune-up in a PPV undercard slot. The belief is that a big win today finally leads to that bigger payday tomorrow.
Only the most feared man in boxing fails to live up to his end of the bargain, coming up short on the one night all eyes are finally upon him.
It's boxing's version of the Sports Illustrated cover jinx. Who knows, if boxing was still relevant enough in the mainstream, maybe some of these fighters would've once graced a past SI cover, thus attributing their temporary downfall to a more familiar source of blame.
Instead, boxing begins its own trend, which lived on Saturday night, when boxing' most feared welterweight, 6'1 southpaw Paul Williams, was upended by Carlos Quintana in the year's first major entry for Upset of the Year.
Quintana and Williams were previously linked in a "Six Degrees of Separation" type of way. Williams had earned the title "boxing's most feared," after scoring a minor upset over the previous claimant, Antonio Margarito, last summer. Margarito accepted the Williams assignment – which also happened to be a career-high payday – after postponing plans for a June showdown with Miguel Cotto at Madison Square Garden.
Cotto entered 2007 coming off of a punishing 5th round knockout win over Quintana.
From all of that mess came the assumption by many (myself included) that Williams would breeze past the once-beaten Puerto Rican, and spend the rest of the year being avoided by the division's best, including Cotto, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Kermit Cintron.
The original plans called for Cintron to face Williams on February 2. Only Cintron suffered a hand injury in his November fight with Jesse Feliciano. The amount of time required to heal didn't coincide with the scheduled date, leading to the postponement. The date was pushed back a week, though Goossen was allegedly willing to push back to late March if it meant getting Williams in the ring with the Puerto Rican bomber.
The bout fell through after Main Events didn't appreciate the negotiations – no specific date was offered (though Goossen claimed it to be March 29 in a pre-fight conference call earlier last week), and they were asked to agree to a fight without full knowledge of when their welterweight could return to the ring.
In came Quintana after a brief scramble to find a suitable replacement. Quintana was praised for accepting the fight, but given little chance to actually win. Whether or not Williams entered the fight under the same assumption is something only he can answer. But whatever the case, Quintana showed little concern over the man billed as boxing's most feared, landing the more significant blows throughout the fight en route to a well-deserved unanimous decision.
None of this is to suggest that Williams still isn't a player in the talent-rich welterweight division; just that it's no longer a pre-requisite for linear champion Floyd Mayweather to fight him in the near future. Nor can the beanpole southpaw's any longer insist that their charge remains boxing's most feared.
It's safe to say that Quintana won't pick up the title, much as Williams did after his July 2007 win over Margarito. People now look at Quintana as a vulnerable titlist, one whose fighting heart was brutally exposed against Miguel Cotto just over a year ago. Winning cures many ways, but not a fighter's limitations. Chances are those same fighters who dismissed Williams' credentials and the alphabet title he carried will now look favorably upon Carlos Quintana.
That should sit well with Quintana. The more the phone rings, the higher his asking price can go up. Just ask Carlos Baldomir, whose phone was ringing off the hook after upset wins over Zab Judah and Arturo Gatti in 2006. All of the same fighters Antonio Margarito had hoped to face were instead angling for a showdown with the limited, but surging, Argentinean.
Just as very few who cared about then heavyweight beltholder Hasim Rahman couldn't dial fast enough to get in contact with Oleg Maskaev. There's also Vivian Harris' demands from 2003-2005 of a big time junior welterweight showdown repeatedly falling on deaf ears, only for conqueror Carlos Maussa's voice to suddenly ring out loud and clear.
Chances are Williams' phone will start ringing. His flaws have been exposed, and with losing naturally comes a reduction in asking price. Soon, the man once marketed as boxing's most feared will be offered previously desired assignments for less-than-desirable wages, at which point he'll either have to call someone's bluff or turn down chump change offers, in effect setting the stage for another fighter to carry the tag "boxing's most feared."
Fighters like Joan Guzman, Junior Witter and Joshua Clottey might want to take notice. All three reside in division's where seven-figure paydays are so close, yet so far when you boast the high-risk, low-reward style all three possess. Perhaps neither Juan Manuel Marquez nor Manny Pacquaio have any desire to face Guzman. Ricky Hatton has made it clear that Witter must continue to play the waiting game for their all-UK showdown to ever materialize. If a guaranteed mandatory title shot still couldn't secure Clottey a fight with Kermit Cintron, don't hold your breath waiting for the Ghanaian to land one with Floyd Mayweather Jr.
But what all, along with Williams, Margarito and others, need to do is keep winning. Hiring a team to paint the picture that everyone's running scared may help draw more attention to your next fight, but it just means being subject to more criticism if you're not everything you were hyped up to be – and worse, lose against that man who in fact showed you no fear.
Jake Donovan is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and the Tennessee Boxing Advisory Board. His feature column runs every Tuesday, and his Prospect of the Week series runs every Thursday. Jake is also BoxingScene's official Telefutura correspondent.
Please feel free to submit any comments or questions to Jake at JakeNDaBox@gmail.com.