Paul Williams will be ending a nearly nine-month layoff when he enters the ring on Dec. 5 against Sergio Martinez, which he calls "a good thing."Williams (37-1, 27 knockouts) will face Martinez (44-1-2, 24 KOs) in Atlantic City, on the same night he was supposed to challenge WBO and WBC middleweight (160 pounds) champion Kelly Pavlik (35-1, 31 KOs), before the titlist canceled their bout due to a staph infection on the knuckle of his left forefinger.
"I've got to focus on this guy now. It's a little bit of an adjustment, but it's nothing that a champion can't do," said Williams, an Aiken, S.C., native now living in Augusta, Ga.
"At this point in my career, a win is a win. But any time you get in there, you want to make a statement," said Williams. "And I'm going to make a statement. I'm going to go in there and do what I do."
The Williams-Martinez 12-round, non-title, middleweight clash of southpaws will be televised on HBO from the Boardwalk Hall's Adrian Phillips Ballroom.
"I've fought a couple of southpaws, so it's not a thing to me," said Williams, 28. "I've just got to go out there and continue to do what I do."
The 34-year-old Martinez is 28-0-1 with 18 knockouts since February of 2000, when he was stopped in seven rounds by Antonio Margarito, whom Williams decisioned unanimously in July of 2007.
"I know that he's a fast fighter. He comes to fight. That's just about all that I know about him," said Williams, who has twice held the WBO welterweight crown and owns the WBO's interim junior middleweight title.
"I think that every fighter is looking to knock me off, and I love that because that motivates me to have to stay on top. So I'm looking at it like I'm the [underdog] trying to knock him off."
I think that every fighter is looking to knock me off, and I love that because that motivates me to have to stay on top. I'm looking at it like I'm the [underdog] trying to knock him off.
-- Paul Williams
The WBC junior middleweight (154) champion, Martinez is coming off of February's 12-round majority draw with Kermit Cintron, who has twice been stopped by Margarito.
"I'm not looking at the guys that he fought. You can't judge him off of that. He could have had an off night, just like I've had one off night in my career," said Williams, referring to a February, 2008 unanimous decision loss to Carlos Quintana, whom he rebounded to stop in the first round four months later.
"[Martinez] might be looking at me like I'm the top fighter, but in my eyes, I'm looking at him the same way," said Williams. "I'm looking at it as if I still have to prove myself, and that's providing me with some extra motivation."
A dangerous boxer because of his height (6-foot-1), high punch output, athleticism and general talents, Williams appears to be running out of opponents to fight.
"We didn't get caught off guard," with Pavlik's injury, Williams' manager and trainer, George Peterson, told FanHouse last month. "We have been sparring with right-handers and left-handers" as a backup plan.
Williams' talents were last on display in April, when he handed former world champion, Winky Wright (51-5-1, five KOs), the most lopsided loss of his career, 120-108, on one judge's card, and 119-109 on the other two.
"If we can get somebody to fight us at 147, we're going to entertain that also. We just have to go to wherever he can get a fight, it's as simple as that," said Peterson.
"We've stopped calling people out. That doesn't seem to work. But we don't plan to go up any further. We're only planning on going back down, because the only person in the 160-pound weight class that the networks will consider biting on is Kelly Pavlik. But they're not going to spend $3 million or $4 million on that, so there's nobody out there who can challenge us at 160 pounds. The ideal weight is to back down to 154 right now.
"But you've still got [Manny Pacquiao], [Miguel] Cotto, Shane Mosley and [Floyd] Mayweather. They're all hanging around at 147, but they may also flip-flop back and forth at 154. After a while, maybe somebody will break and we may get a breakthrough. It's not happening right now, but we still have to keep busy."
