By Sammy Rozenberg

A new star was born at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California as Paul "The Punisher" Williams (33-0, 24 KOs) of Augusta, GA won a unanimous decision over Antonio Margarito (34-5, 24 KOs) from Tijuana, Mexico to win the WBO welterweight title.

The fight was a back and forth battle of big punches and big wills. Williams may be one of the most active fighters in the sport. He threw 1256 punches over the twelve round contest against the man that both Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and Shane Mosley turned down to fight.

Margarito had a lot of trouble with Williams' height of 6'2 (some say 6'1), his reach of 83 inches and his southpaw style. To make matters worse, Williams was throwing over 100 punches per round, giving Margarito few occasions to jump in with his own counters.

The first half of the fight was dominated by Williams' higher punch output. Not all of the punches were landing, but he was throwing so many that any official judge would find it very hard not to give him the rounds. Margarito did plenty of damage with his bodyshots, making Williams double over at times from the force of the blows.

Williams also used a lot of movement to circle Margarito with his jab and fire off that jab with quick combinations. When he began to slow down, he stood his ground and went toe to toe with tough Mexican hitter, sometimes getting the better of the exchanges.

The defining moment of the fight came in the eleventh round. Margarito sensing that he needed to close the show big, began blistering Williams with a high volume of power punches to the head and body, opening a big cut above the left eye of Williams in the process. Williams showed that he was for real by hanging on and weathering a storm that would broken down a lot of other men.

Unknown to the combatants, the fight was on the table in the final round. Williams came out in the twelfth like he was the man who needed it more. He was began to once again circle around and pepper Margarito with a jab that was followed by quick combinations to steal the round from the charging champion.

The final scores were 116-112, 115-113 and 115-113.

It’s going to be very hard for any of the top welterweights to overcome the physical attributes and workrate of Williams. We all wanted to see what would happen if he was tested by a heavy puncher. He passed that test when he took the best punches Margarito was able to land and countered back with his own. He proved his heart and determination to win by taking a beating in the eleventh round and coming back to win the twelfth. Few top fighters will be running to fight Williams after such a performance.

Margarito had an agreement in place to fight WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto in the fall. Now that he lost to Williams, the fight with Cotto is obviously not going to happen. Arguably the second biggest name in the welterweight division, Shane Mosley, is on the campaign trail for a title fight and everything appears to point to Mosley being the man to take Margarito's place as Cotto's next opponent.

IBF welterweight champ Kermit Cintron, who earlier in the night scored a crushing two-round knockout over Walter Matthysse in Atlantic City, wants to unify the titles. A bout between Cintron and Williams could be possible and don’t be surprised if it happens.

Williams could not have won a better time because all of the big money seems to be at 147-pounds.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. recently announced that would unretire and continue his reign as the WBC champion of the welterweights. It's unlikely that Mayweather will want to fight a guy like Williams in the near future. Currently Floyd is trying to lure junior welterweight Ricky Hatton to move up in weight for a potential fight on November 10.

The biggest news of the night, was the announcement by HBO’s Larry Merchant, who told a televised audience that Oscar De La Hoya was going to continue fighting and plans to move down to the welterweight division to close out his career. Now that De La Hoya is coming back to 147-pounds, it opens up the door for Williams, and a lot of other young stars in the division to make names for themselves by challenging the biggest name in the sport.
 
On the undercard;

Undefeated heavyweight contender Chris Arreola (21-0, 19 KOs) stopped Derek Berry (12-9-1, 5 KOs) in 57 seconds of the first round.

Hot super middleweight prospect Andre Ward (13-0, 8 KOs), a 2004 U.S. Olympic gold medal winner, stopped Francisco Diaz (16-2, 8 KOs) in the third round with a crushing right hand.