It’s hard to believe, but there were still people who weren’t high on Julian Williams coming into Tuesday night on Fox Sports 1. He surely killed some of that noise on Fox Sports 1 with a crushing, shockingly easy knockout of rugged journeyman Luciano Cuello in less than a round.
Cuello, who’d been in there with Canelo Alvarez, Willie Nelson and Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr., only landed two punches and only threw five. Williams jabbed him into submission, used his excellent footwork to keep him from firing and just target practiced him into oblivion. He bloodied his eye, then caught him with two quick rights to the temple that had Cuello dancing. A whole bunch of right hands along the ropes later, the fight was over. If some of the skepticism was about Williams style — he’s a boxer first, puncher second — then this alleviates some of that, too.
After the knockout, Williams announced that he is “all around” and wants to fight anybody in the junior middleweight division. He’s right about the first point, and he doesn’t sound like someone talking the talk on the second. Who in the world would call out Austin Trout AND the Charlos? That’s asking for some of the trickiest guys in the weight class — low-reward, high-risk opponents. He came over to spar verbally with Trout, who was doing ringside commentating, no doubt with plenty of fight left after his easy victory. Trout said he’d take the bout. The two have been talking past one another for a while now but it would be a good match-up of top fighters in the division, one older and on the rebound and the other fully on the rise. Maybe before Tuesday night, it stacked up as a boring one. But Williams demonstrated that when he gets the chance to make a statement, he’ll rev his engine and squeal his tires.
He’s my favorite young fighter right now, and his confidence, energy and enthusiasm — combined with his all-around ability — could take him a long way.
The FS1 opener has its share of excitement, as junior featherweights Moises Flores and Luis Emanuel Cusolito clubbed away at one another with reckless abandon over 12 rounds. Flores probably got the better of the two-way clubbing through 12, not that anybody gets anything “good” from getting clubbed so much mid-clubbing. It was a seriously grueling contest, with almost every punch thrown with maximum force. In the final round Flores stiffened Cusolito’s leg and was blasting him pretty severely when the the ref stepped in to stop it, a controversial call with Twitterdom but not utterly indefensible given Cusolito’s state. Neither of these guys are all that good but they put on a helluva show, and each are welcome to spice up any future card when pitted against other bruisers (give one of these guys a counterpuncher and they’ll spark and bleep like a malfunctioning robot).
