By Cliff Rold

For the second week in a row, albeit on a smaller scale, boxing will split its best fights of the week between the U.S. and Japan with a pound-for-pound player at center stage in the former and a fiery rematch of one of 2009’s best (and most unheralded) battles in the latter.

The stakes are high in both contests.

Live on HBO, Middleweight Paul Williams makes his first start since winning a classic against Sergio Martinez…and watching Martinez go on to win the Middleweight title since.  Williams has faced pressure before.  He rose to the occasion when he challenged Antonio Margarito in 2007 and again in avenging his first loss to Carlos Quintana in 2008.  This time, the pressure is not just in winning but in performance.  Williams is asked not only if he can defeat hard punching Kermit Cintron but also if he can win with enough style to fuel demand for a rematch with Martinez for all the marbles.

Across the Pacific, and off U.S. TV, Hugo Cazares will attempt to finish what he almost started last September.  So, for that matter, will Nobuo Nashiro.  The winner emerges either as the best available contender to World Jr. Bantamweight Vic Darchinyan after the implosion of a rematch between Darchinyan and Nonito Donaire…or as the division’s best fighter if, as it appears, Darchinyan and Donaire may both be off to the red hot Bantamweight class.  Last week, Mexico’s Fernando Montiel traveled to Tokyo and upended Japan’s Hozumi Hasegawa. 

Can Cazares make it two weeks straight for Mexican lightning in a bottle or will Nashiro take the lead for a nation which has seen both Hasegawa and Koki Kameda knocked off their perches in recent vintage?

Let’s go the report cards.

The Ledgers

Paul Williams
Age: 28
Title: None
Previous Titles: WBO Welterweight (2007-08; 08); WBO Jr. Middleweight (interim, 2008-09)
Height: 6’1
Weight: 152.5 lbs.
Average Weight – Last Five Fights: 154.05 lbs.
Hails from: Augusta, Georgia
Record: 38-1, 27 KO
BoxingScene Rank: #1 at Middleweight
Record in Major Title Fights: 3-1, 2 KO
Current/Former World Champions/Titlists Defeated: 6 (Sharmba Mitchell, Antonio Margarito, Carlos Quintana, Verno Phillips, Winky Wright, Sergio Martinez)
Current/Former World Champions/Titlists Faced in Defeat: 1 (Carlos Quintana)

Vs.

Kermit Cintron
Age: 30
Title: None
Previous Titles: IBF Welterweight (2006-08, 2 Defenses)
Height: 5’11
Weight: 154 lbs.
Average Weight – Last Five Fights: 150.1 lbs.
Hails from: Houston, Texas
Record: 32-2-1, 28 KO
BoxingScene Rank: #4 at Jr. Middleweight
Record in Major Title Fights: 3-2-1, 3 KO, 2 KOBY
Current/Former World Champions/Titlists Defeated: 1 (Lovemore N’Dou)
Current/Former World Champions/Titlists Faced in Defeat or Draw: 2 (Antonio Margarito, Sergio Martinez)

Pre-Fight Grades
Speed – Williams A; Cintron B
Power – Williams B; Cintron A
Defense – Williams B; Cintron C
Intangibles – Williams A; Cintron B-

This bout, which is technically a Jr. Middleweight contest, has a more alluring look than it might have before Williams-Martinez.  Williams, after scoring a quick knockdown, was dropped hard in return during the opening round and was stunned at other points in the night.  There isn’t much Cintron can do better than Martinez, but scoring knockouts would qualify.

Of course, Cintron has to land the power.  To date, when his competition has been stepped up, he hasn’t really done so.  He hasn’t really been much better than a game opponent.  Against Margarito twice, and against Martinez, Cintron wilted.  Despite the draw verdict, Cintron appeared to be stopped midway through the Martinez bout and a points verdict against him would have been a more fair verdict.

It might not matter if Williams makes the wrong mistake.  Williams, an entertaining volume puncher, can set a pace Cintron won’t be able to keep but in doing so will provide plenty of opportunities to land.  Cintron is tall for the middle divisions and, if he can muster the patience he showed in decisioning then-undefeated young contender Alfredo Angulo, he might be able to time his big right hand.  How he’ll handle the southpaw rhythm of Williams will be the key to the fight, and to whether a fight really breaks out.  If it does, Cintron has been more hittable than Williams.

If it comes down to a test of wills, Williams has to be favored.  Outside of a learning loss to Quintana in their first bout, he’s been nothing but a gamer.  Cintron, outside of the Angulo win, has not.  Questions about whether Margarito might have been, ahem, heavy handed in those wins persist but one cannot assume it so.

After all, Williams absorbed his share of shots from Margarito as well.  He didn’t fold.

In the big Jr. Bantamweight fight this weekend, both men enter the fray wondering just what it would take to make the other do some folding.

Nobuo Nashiro
Age: 28
Titles: WBA Jr. Bantamweight (2008-Present, 2 Defenses)
Previous Titles: WBA Jr. Bantamweight (2006-07, 1 Defense)
Height: 5’4 ½
Weight: 115 lbs.
Average Weight – Last Five Fights: 116.15 lbs.
Hails from: Osaka, Japan
Record: 13-1-1, 8 KO
BoxingScene Rank: #2 at Jr. Bantamweight
Record in Major Title Fights: 4-1-1, 2 KO
Current/Former World Champions/Titlists Defeated or Drawn: 1 (Martin Castillo, Hugo Cazares)
Current/Former World Champions/Titlists Faced in Defeat: 1 (Alexander Munoz)

Vs.

Hugo Cazares
Age: 32
Title: None
Previous Titles: WBO Jr. Flyweight (2005-06, 3 Defenses); Lineal/Ring/WBO (2006-07, 1 Defense)
Height: 5’4
Weight: 115 lbs.
Average Weight – Last Five Fights: 114.75 lbs.
Hails from: Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico
Record: 30-6-2, 22 KO
Record in Major Title Fights: 6-2-1, 5 KO
BoxingScene Rank: #4 at Jr. Bantamweight
Current/Former World Champions/Titlists Defeated or Drawn: 4 (Nelson Dieppa, Alex Sanchez, Kermin Guardia, Roberto Vasquez, Nobuo Nashiro)
Current/Former World Champions/Titlists Faced in Defeat: 1 (Ivan Calderon)

Pre-Fight Grades
Speed – Nashiro B+; Cazares B+
Power – Nashiro B+; Cazares B+
Defense – Nashiro B; Cazares C+
Intangibles – Nashiro A; Cazares A

For those who missed the first fight and didn’t catch it on YouTube, an idea of what went down could be found in the post-fight report card:

Cazares, who looked drained in his last two fights at 108 lbs. versus Ivan Calderon is fully acclimated now to 115 and it showed in his sharper speed and form.  The southpaw fought a disciplined bout, as both exchanged for long stretches at mid-ring.  Standing tall in the pocket and alternating between counterpuncher and aggressor in the first half of the fight, Cazares found Nashiro a tough target in the first two rounds and ate some big right hands and a couple notable left hooks inside.  By the third, he was timing Nashiro’s rushes and even stunned the titlist for a moment before staving off a rushing comeback.  Nashiro edged the fourth but Cazares was rough going in the fifth and sixth to pull the bout even.

His momentum was carrying through round seven and then came the eighth.  It was one of the best three minute adrenaline rushes of the year.  Cazares busted in with his lead left and all hell broke loose as each man took turns battering the other.  A slip to the canvas by Cazares in the final thirty seconds broke the flow of the round which was a shame as it was round of the year stuff to then.

It might have been anyways… Nashiro, as was the case in the bulk of the rest of the fight, land(ed) the flusher, cleaner blows but Cazares was always there to fire back.  In the final round, Nashiro landed two huge rights near the corner and wobbled Cazares.  The Mexican wisely held, moved, and then re-engaged but the Japanese juggernaut fought with relentless determination.  

The crowd certainly got its yen’s worth.

In terms of power, both men were rocked but withstood with guts, tough chins, and the luck that neither man is really a one-punch KO artist.  They hit hard for their size, but just hard enough to keep the leather flowing.  Defensively, Nashiro was a little better, able to use his arms and shoulders to deflect many of the lefts while Cazares showed more control but still ate a lot of shots when Nashiro got close. 

To their credit, both men earn the highest marks for those things which can’t be taught.  They fought with spirit, pride, and will in a contest which got better as the rounds wore on.  It was an escalation of tensions and neither folded as the heat turned up.

One can only hope for more of the same when these two lock up Saturday in Japan.

The Picks

Expected from this scribe, who admits with full disclosure to missing the pick in five of the last six here, is for Nashiro-Cazares II to be another excellent fight but one a bit less thrilling than the first.  Nashiro is a fighter who has faced a steep learning curve, facing world class foes almost from the pro cradle.  He still has room to improve; with Cazares what is seen is what we get.  He’s unlikely to stop Cazares, and vice versa, but Nashiro should be able to use his greater accuracy to nab enough rounds to secure a decision nod this time around.

The U.S. main event should be more decisive.  Cintron has a puncher’s chance, but that’s about it.  Williams biggest threat right now is himself.  His whirlwind, devil may care style doesn’t scream long career and he’ll pack miles on quick with more fights like Martinez.  Cintron just isn’t capable of that sort of fight,  He might rock Williams early on, but if he does Williams can be expected to overwhelm him with leather in response.  Rocked or not, that overwhelming should amount to a stoppage sometime from round six forward.

Report Card Picks 2010: 12-7

Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com