By Chris Acosta – Bert and Ernie, Thelma and Louise, Peanut Butter and Jelly, Cause and Effect, Bradshaw and Swann, Pamela Anderson: all great examples of the magic of historical pairs. The duo, the pairing of two contrasting or analogous entities, has always made for great drama, comedy, sport or epic saga.
Yeah sure, single characters have their own charm too but they’ll never match the versatility or range an extra set of opinions can provide. And trios are routinely anointed with negative connotations: Stooges, Blind Mice, Little Pigs, reading, writing and arithmetic and so on. No matter what the situation, it’s almost always more fun to do it, ahem, with someone else.
Last night’s Boxing After Dark segment on HBO, reminded me of the fact that Goossen-Tutor stable mates, Paul “The Punisher” Williams and Chris “The Nightmare” Arreola have become their own little institution in the boxing world. Their double-headers have routinely created violent endings for their opponents and also put them in some hairy situations. Let’s go back in time for a moment, shall we?
2-09-2008 Arreola smashes an overmatched Cliff Couser and Williams, avenges the only loss of his career to Carlos Quintana, by wiping the Puerto Rican southpaw off his conscience. Both fights end in the first round..
9-25-2008
Williams makes his middleweight debut by obliterating journeyman Andy Kolle in the first round with a monster of a right hook. Arreola comes in at a career-high (at the time) 258 pounds and dispatches the game Israel Garcia with his signature combinations. Afterwards, the Riverside native has either the gall or comedic timing to proclaim that since Williams moved up in weight, that he should too.
11-29-08
Veteran Verno Phillips defending the interim WBO Light-Middleweight title, is ground down by Williams’ withering body-punching and forced to surrender at the end of eight rounds. Arreola gets banged around in the first round by fellow prospect Travis Walker, gets dropped in the second and appears headed for his first loss but he retaliates by scoring his own knockdown and then flattening Walker with a picture-perfect hook.
4-11-2009
Typical Arreola: Pound the other guy wherever you can hit him, get rocked a few times (you know, to keep the crowd interested) and then tease us fans by finishing the opponent (Jameel McCline in this case) with a beautiful combination. The ending leaves the nagging question: How good could this guy be if he really applied himself?
Williams shows what happens when you dedicate yourself to your craft by dominating the puzzle of Winky Wright. At the post-fight interview, Wright comments-almost as if thinking aloud- “I knew he threw a lot of punches, but I didn’t know he throws that many punches.” Neither did we, Winky, neither did we.
Which brings us to last night’s December 5th card. Now we knew that Chris Arreola wasn’t going to venture out too deep after the humbling beat down at the hands of Vitali Klitschko only three months ago. Enter Brian Minto. Minto, a smallish heavyweight from Pennsylvania, is the perfect foil: gutsy, offensive and marginally talented. It doesn’t hurt that the guy has never been stopped and went the distance with Germany’s respectable Luan Krasniqi. His credentials are honest.
It goes according to plan, sort of. Minto is out-sized, and gives up nearly 50 pounds in weight but he finds a cozy little home for his right hand on Arreola’s Shnozz and isn’t afraid to use it. Chris eventually pounds his foe into the ground but not before his uncooperative opponent lands some jarring punches on the way down; talk about going down swinging. The crowd loves it and that should count for a lot more than it seems to nowadays. And in an interesting side note regarding Chris’ weight: I didn’t notice it at first but my wife pointed out that despite what the scales said, Arreola did not look too bad. If you compare the physique he brought in against Garcia and even Klitschko, this version of the big seemed tighter and his
shoulders and arms appeared bigger. No, I am not making excuses for him but it’s interesting how dramatically his body appears from fight to fight. We’ll see how it plays out in the future.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t give Sergio Martinez much of a chance against Williams, feeling that Paul was just plain too relentless to fend off for an entire twelve rounds. Throw in the fact that “Maravilla” was stopped almost ten years ago by a guy named Antonio Margarito, a fight in which he shined early but faded under the Mexican’s pressure and the thought was that something similar would happen here. When Sergio was dropped in the first round, it seemed that his demise would unfold much quicker than expected; after all, Williams learned something about dealing with a fellow left-hander as the Quintana episodes illustrated, right? Wrong . Martinez returned the favor moments later with a blinding hook, Williams fell onto his seat and the fans came out of theirs. The first round set the tone for the whole fight: Williams with that undying pressure that you gotta love and Martinez’ unusual athleticism which created a sense of danger every time he flashed his counterpunches.
The fight could really have went either way and there were no losers (except that stupid judge who scored it 119-109 for Williams). It was definitely a fight -of -the year type of adventure and begs for a rematch. More importantly, it adds momentum to a pretty darned good year for boxing. With Manny Pacquaio and Floyd Mayweather set for next year, the Super Six adding a unique flavor to the norm, it’s nice to see that the Williams-Arreola tandem has been delivering excitement in
droves. And that’s the whole idea: let them share a card and see who steals the show. Williams refuses to find the easy way out of earning his money and he’s one of those ring rarities who delivers as promised. And to top it off, he’s world –class all the way which makes his profile even more intriguing. Arreola, a big dude who runs on a bigger battery (and offering a hell of a contradiction to the health and exercise industry) isn’t going to be easy for anyone. He’s mean, more skilled than given credit for and more penetrating than a European beach-goers’ Speedo. The division is better with him in it regardless if some won’t admit it.
Let’s appreciate this traveling set of bruise mongers while we can and hope that we get a few more miles of sadistic scenery out of them. Something tells me that they aren’t anywhere near being done.