Big names don't want Williams now

If the idea was not to scare anybody else off, Paul Williams failed.

With arguably the most dominating performance of his career, Williams buried the much heralded Winky Wright under a barrage of nearly 1,100 punches in a middleweight coming out party last Saturday. Any welterweights not already convinced that the Aiken boxer is too much for them to handle will be screening their calls to ensure 'The Punisher' doesn't get through.

It wasn't exactly what trainer George Peterson had planned.

"I had to hold Paul back," Peterson said. "Paul could've stopped him. But we're having trouble getting fights now. To be in a dominant situation again, especially against this guy, would shoot ourselves in the foot and the head. So I kept holding him back."

If this was holding back, you don't want to see what Williams can do unleashed. Fighting above his natural weight against one of the preeminent defensive boxers in the world, Williams was simply unstoppable as his whole family watched from ringside in Las Vegas (mother, Nancy; brother, Deon; and chil-dren, Paul Jr., 5, and Jecoria, 3).

He threw 1,086 punches in 12 rounds -- blows coming from so many angles that Wright would later say "I thought eight people were in there." It was the first time in any of his five scorecard losses spanning two decades that Wright ever acknowledged he was beaten.

"He threw a lot of punches, and they come from so long a distance it's hard to even counter," a battered Wright said.

That of course is the rub on Williams. He's been called a "freak" by many because of his frame and build, and he keeps on proving it in every weight class from 147 to 160 pounds. He's too big for the welterweights and too active for middleweights. He's now taken to calling out the retired and undefeated Joe Calzaghe, of Wales, at light heavyweight (168 pounds) to see if he can draw any more marquee action.

Williams shrugs off the weight disadvantages he's willing to give up to guys who in a natural state weigh as much as 30 pounds more than he does.

"It's no different but the eating part," he said of a training regimen that allowed him to eat all the carbs and drink all the Sprite he wanted. "It all feels the same to me."

Which is why it's unlikely that any big-name welterweight will ever get in the ring with Williams again. Shane Mosely already told him no way. The other champs choose to ignore him for self preservation.

"Can you imagine if he could get the fights that we need in the weight class of 147 pounds," Peterson said wistfully. "He's doomed there. He'll never get back there."

Peterson believes his fighter is becoming one of the greatest of all time. He believes he's destined for the hall of fame. He just waits for Williams to get the chance to finally prove it.

"Paul will exceed the fame of Sugar Ray Leonard or Marvin Hagler or Tommy Hearns or Roberto Duran," Peterson said almost nonchalantly. "He could be the hottest thing in boxing in the last 20 years. But he's still being punished because people won't fight him."

After watching the Wright fight, the fear is understandable. One moment in the fifth round illustrated his freakish raw gifts to the point that the referee actually warned Williams because he'd never seen anything like it before.

Wright was holding Williams' right arm, so Williams delivered a roundhouse left up underneath his own arm and connected squarely in Wright's face.

"That's another punch I have," Williams said. "Guys I spar weren't surprised by that."

The HBO announcers, however, were in awe.

"He's so creative," Peterson said. "When I mention raw talent, that's what I'm talking about. You'll see things from this guy that you just haven't seen before."

So, too, will Williams. If middleweight powers Kelly Pavlik and Art Abraham dodge Williams, he hopes to lure Calzaghe out of retirement for a 168-pound fight in September. It took a shift in eating and training philosophy to fatten him up to 157 and get him to cope with the added weight, yet Williams seemed as fresh after whipping Wright for 12 rounds as he did when it started.

"I don't care for it, but what can we do?" Peterson asked. "We've got to fight somebody. We just can't sit around."

After last week, you can't be too sure anyone will be willing to stand in with him.

Reach Scott Michaux at (706) 823-3219 or scott.michaux@augustachronicle.com.