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The Truth About Austin “Ammo” Williams, Houston’s Gifted Up-and-Comer
There’s no shortage of fighters working out at local boxing gyms who are eager to share with you their plans for world domination. But there really aren’t that many capable of actually pulling it off. Austin “Ammo” Williams is a notable exception. One of the top junior middleweight prospects in the world today, Williams lives and trains in Houston.
“I love to fight,” said Williams. “That’s my whole plan and plot for the world. I want the world to see that side of me right now.”
It’s no wonder the 23-year-old was quickly scooped up by promoter Eddie Hearn last year, and alongside six other stalwart hopefuls, seems to figure heavily in the race to become DAZN’s first homegrown boxing star.
If you’ve already seen him fight before, you know two things about Williams. First, he’s an incredibly gifted athlete, the kind that’s pretty much always going to be faster, stronger and better equipped than just about any person he’ll ever see in an opposing corner.
Second, Williams is a hard-punching and aggressive southpaw who is eager to concuss people. Despite getting a late start in the sport at age 19 and having just 47 amateur bouts under his belt when he decided to turn pro, Williams doesn’t really appear to be just learning on the job as he moves up the professional ranks. I mean sure, the kid has to learn to be a professional boxer the same way every fighter who enters the paid ranks has to do. But Williams looks way more like a longtime amateur stalwart with Olympic pedigree than he does some random guy off the street with less than 50 fights.
So whenever Williams, 22, who trains at Main Street Boxing & Muay Thai Gym in Houston, enters a boxing ring on fight night, he isn’t just trying to scrape by and win fights. Williams wants to knock his opponent out, and he wants to look good doing it.
“I love to fight people, and it’s not because I’m angry or something,” said Williams. “I just really just enjoy it. There’s nothing that gives me the same kind of thrill as fighting.”
Williams attended high school at Fort Bend Hightower in suburban Houston where he played football, basketball, and several other sports. He said he was a “natural athlete” and also that he could dunk a basketball which is something one might easily assume about the fighter just from seeing how well he moves inside a boxing ring.
But Williams also said he got into a little bit of trouble growing up, mostly because he always ended up getting into fistfights.
“I just got in a lot of trouble, and it wasn’t bad trouble as far as like being in a gang or anything, but it was all fighting,” said Williams. “Nothing gave me the thrill that actually fighting and testing it out did. So at the age of 19, I realized, this is what I was passionate about. So I said let’s go into it formally and legally and let’s see what I can do.”
Williams is trained by Dwight Pratchett, a former boxer and longtime training fixture at Main Street. During his own fighting days, Pratchett twice won the NABF junior lightweight title and was the first to go the 12-round distance with Hall of Fame legend Julio Cesar Chavez.
“He works really hard,” said Pratchett about his young protégé. “He has a really good work ethic.”
Pratchett said his job, along with the fighter’s California-based management team of Peter Berg and Sam Katkovski, was to keep Williams moving in the right direction. He said for all Williams’ talent and natural fighting ability, fighters like him are best moved up the ranks slowly because they usually want to do too much too soon. The learning curve for a professional fighter, after all, is very steep.
That evident in Williams’ last fight, a scheduled four-rounder against Quadeer Jenkins on the undercard of the Anthony Joshua vs. Andy Ruiz heavyweight championship fight at Madison Square Garden in New York on June 1.
In that fight, Williams was tagged with a hard right hand in the opening seconds.
“Right out the gate!” said Williams.
But Williams isn’t just a blunt instrument. He’s an intelligent and affable fighter who could easily have gone to college to become an engineer or scientist or something. He also seems wise for his age, saying that getting hit clean like that was just one of many experiences he’ll have in boxing that will help mold him into a future world champion.
In fact, I could tell Williams had been thinking about the experience a lot because he was happy to share with me what he learned from it.
“That was a great experience for me actually, something that I had been warned about,” said Williams. “But it’s another one of those things that you just get as you go through it. You fight guys like that who have pretty much nothing to lose and they come out blazing.”
Williams said the remedy for the onslaught was a left hook to the body, a hard one given with serious force and optimal precision, to keep Jenkins from rushing forward again. From that point forward, Williams dominated and ultimately stopped Jenkins just two minutes later for his second knockout in as many fights.
“The goal in my mind now is to make sure that I never get tagged that fast coming out again,” said Williams. “And we’re also coming up with some new strategies to make sure that never happens. It’s that simple.”
The best part about Williams is probably his candor. It’s one thing to suffer a small kind of humiliation as he did against Jenkins. After all, so long as Williams achieves his full potential or close to it, most people probably won’t remember anything about that moment someday.
Heck, I suppose most people wouldn’t have even asked him about it.
But it’s another to openly talk about the experience, to share the truth of the feeling with a complete stranger, and to talk about how even this one little, seemingly meaningless thing in his second pro fight might become part of the larger fabric that becomes his personal legacy.
Yes, Williams plans to take over the boxing world someday, and being an amazing athlete with natural fighting ability will certainly help him in that endeavor. But the bigger thing to me, and the one that sets him apart in my mind as a likely future world champion is that he doesn’t try to hide any little thing about himself.
He sees the truth. He accepts the truth. He becomes the truth.
“I cringe every time I look at it because I know I’m better than that,” said Williams. “But, as I said before, that’s just one of those experiences I get from going in there, and some things can only be learned in the ring.”
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Emanuel Navarrete and Rafael Espinoza Shine in Phoenix
Emanuel Navarrete and Rafael Espinoza Shine in Phoenix
PHOENIX – Saturday was a busy night on the global boxing scene, and it’s quite likely that the howling attendees in Phoenix’s Footprint Center witnessed the finest overall card of the international schedule. The many Mexican flags on display in the packed, scaled down arena signaled the event’s theme.
Co-main events featured rematches that arose from a pair of prior crowd-pleasing slugfests. Each of tonight’s headlining bouts ended at the halfway point, but that was their only similarity.
Emanuel “Vaquero” Navarrete, now 39-2-1 (32), defended his WBO Junior Lightweight belt with a dramatic stoppage of more-than-willing Oscar Valdez, 32-3 (24). The 29-year-old champion spoke of retirement wishes, but after dominating a blazing battle in which he scored three knockdowns, his only focus was relaxing during the holidays then getting back to what sounded like long-term business.
“Valdez was extremely tough in this fight,” said Navarrete. “I knew I had to push him back and I did. You are now witnessing the second phase of my career and you can expect great things from me in 2025.”
“I don’t really know about the future,” said the crestfallen, 33-year-old Valdez. “No excuses. He did what he wanted to and I couldn’t.”
Navarrete, a three-division titlist, came up one scorecard short of a fourth belt in his previous fight last May, a split decision loss to Denys Berinchyk. This was Navarrete’s fourth Arizona appearance so he was cheered like a homeboy, but Valdez was definitely the crowd favorite, evident from the cheers that erupted as both fighters were shown arriving in glistening, low rider automobiles.
Both men came out throwing huge shots, but it was Navarrete who scored a flash knockdown in the first round, setting the tone for the rest of the fight. There was fierce action in every frame, with Navarrete getting the best of most of it, but even when he was in trouble Valdez roared back and brought the crowd to their feet. He got dropped again at the very end of round four, and Navarrete sent his mouthpiece into orbit the round after that.
When Navarrette drove Valdez into the ropes during round six it looked like referee Raul Caiz, Jr was about to intervene, but before he could decide, Navarrete finished matters himself with a perfect left to the ribs that crumpled Valdez into a KO at 2:42.
“He talked about getting ready to retire soon so I told him we had to fight again right now,” said Valdez prior to the rematch. There were numerous “be careful what you wish for” type predictions of doom and he entered the ring at around a two to one underdog, understanding the contest’s make or break stakes. “Boxing penalizes you if you have a lot of losses,” observed Valdez. “It’s not like other sports where you can lose and do better next season. In boxing, most people don’t want to see you again after a couple of losses.”
What Valdez might decide remains to be seen, but even in defeat he proved to be a warrior worth watching.
Co-Feature
After their epic, razor-close encounter almost exactly a year ago, it was obvious Rafael Espinoza, and fellow 30-year-old Robeisy Ramirez should meet again for the WBO featherweight title belt Espinoza earned by an upset majority decision. Espinoza turned the trick again this time around, inside the distance, but it was more anti-climactic than anything like toe-to-toe.
The 6’1” Espinoza, now 26-0 (22), was the aggressor from the opening frame, but 5’6” Ramirez, 14-3 (9) employed his short stature well to stay out of immediate danger and countered to the body for a slight edge. The Cuban challenger avoided much of their previous firefight and initially controlled the tempo. The crowd jeered him for staying away but it was an effective strategy, at least at first.
Espinoza connected much better in the fifth round and looked fresher as Ramirez’s face rapidly reddened. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere in round six, Ramirez took a punch then raised a glove in surrender. Whatever the reason, even looking at Ramirez’s swollen right eye, it looked like a “No Mas” moment. Replays showed a straight right to the eye socket, but that didn’t stop the crowd from hooting their disgust after ref Chris Flores signaled the end at 0:12.
***
Richard Torrez, Jr, now 12-0 (11), displayed his Olympic silver medal pedigree in a heavyweight bout against Issac Munoz, 18-2-1 (15). Torrez, 236.6, found his punching range quickly with southpaw leads as Munoz, 252, tried to stand his ground but looked hurt by early body work that forced him into the ropes. He was gasping for breath as Torrez peppered him in the second, and Munoz went back to his corner on unsteady legs.
Munoz’s team should have thought about saving him for another day in the third as he ate big shots. Luckily, referee Raul Caiz, Jr. was wiser and had seen enough, waving it off for a TKO at 0:59.
“I don’t train for the opponent,” reflected Torrez, who isn’t far from true contender status. “Every time I train, I train for a world championship fight.”
***
Super-lightweight Lindolfo Delgado, 139.9, improved to 22-0 (16), and took another step into the world title picture against Jackson Marinez, now 22-4 (10), 139.2.
On paper this junior welterweight matchup appeared fairly even, and Marinez managed to keep it that way for almost half the scheduled ten rounds against a solid prospect but Delgado kept upping the ante until Marinez was out of chips. The assembled swarm was whistling for more action after three tentative opening frames, as Delgado loaded up but couldn’t put much offense together.
That changed in the 4th when Delgado connected with solid crosses. In the fifth, a fine combination dropped Marinez into a delayed knockdown and a wicked follow-up right to the guts finished the wobbly Marinez, who had nothing to be ashamed of, off in the arms of ref Wes Melton. Official TKO time was 2:13.
In a matter of concurrent programming, Saturday also held a lot of highly publicized college football and basketball games which likely detracted from the larger mainstream audience and media coverage this fight card deserved. That’s a shame but you can’t fault boxing, Top Rank, or any of the fighters for that because, once again, they all came through big time in Phoenix.
Photos credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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Brooklyn’s Richardson Hitchins Wins IBF 140-Pound Title in Puerto Rico
A change of champions took place as Richardson Hitchins rallied from a lethargic start to wrest the IBF super lightweight title from Australia’s Liam Paro by split decision on Saturday in Puerto Rico at Coliseo Roberto Clemente in San Juan.
Brooklyn has another world champion.
“I’m just happy to be a world champion,” Hitchins said.
Hitchins (19-0, 7 KOs) proved that his style of fighting could prevail over Paro (25-1, 15 KOs) who had previously knocked off another Puerto Rican champion, Subriel Matias.
Both fighters expected a different kind of encounter as Paro immediately started the fight with constant pressure and short, precise combinations. Hitchins had expected a different attack and seemed hesitant to pull the trigger.
“I couldn’t get my timing,” said Hitchins. “I thought he was going to put the pressure on me.”
Soon Hitchins ramped up his attack.
After Paro had jumped ahead with a constant strategic attack, Hitchins slipped into second gear behind a sharp right counter that found the target repeatedly.
Things began to swing in the Brooklyn fighter’s favor.
Those long arms came in handy for Hitchins who snapped off deadeye rights through Paro’s guard repeatedly. Soon the southpaw Aussie’s eye began to show signs of damage.
But Paro never quit.
Aside from using quick counters, Paro began firing lead lefts and the occasional right hook and uppercut. But seldom did he target the body. Slowly, the rounds began mounting in favor of the Brooklyn fighter.
Perhaps the best blow of the fight took place in the ninth round as Hitchins connected flush with a one-two combination. Though stunned, Paro trudged forward looking to immediately counter.
He mostly failed.
Still, Paro knew the rounds were not one-sided and he could close the distance. The Aussie fighter did well in the 11th and 12th round but could not land a significant blow. After 12 rounds one judge saw Paro the winner 117-11, while two others saw Hitchins the winner 116-112 for the new IBF titlist.
“He’s a hell of a boxer,” said Paro who loses the title in his first defense. “It’s not a loss, it’s a lesson.”
Other Bouts
A battle between Puerto Rican featherweights saw Henry Lebron (20-0) out-battle Christopher Diaz-Velez by decision after 10 action-packed rounds.
In a lightweight fight Agustin Quintana (21-2-1) gave Marc Castro (13-1) his first loss to win by split decision after 10 rounds.
Welterweight Jose Roman Vazquez (14-1) defeated Jalil Hackett (9-1) by split decision after 10 rounds.
Photo credit: Melina Pizano / Matchroom
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A Six-Pack of Undercard Action from the Top Rank Card in Phoenix
A Six-Pack of Undercard Action from the Top Rank Card in Phoenix
Top Rank promoted a 10-fight card tonight at the NBA arena in Phoenix. The undercard included welterweight standout Giovani Santillan and a bevy of young prospects.
Based on his showing tonight, Albert “Chop Chop” Gonzalez is a prospect on the cusp of being a contender. A high-octane fighter with ring smarts that bely his tender age, the 22-year-old Gonzalez pitched a near 8-round shutout over Argentina’s Gerardo Antonio Perez, advancing his record to 12-0 (7). Although Gonzalez was forced to go the distance after five straight wins by stoppage, Perez, an Argentine who had never been stopped and was better than his 12-6-1 record, had a granite chin.
LA junior bantamweight Steven Navarro improved to 5-0 (4 KOs) with a second-round stoppage of Gabriel Bernardi (7-2). Navarro had Bernardi, a Puerto Rican, on the canvas twice before referee Raul Caiz Jr waived it off.
In a welterweight contest slated for “10,” Giovani Santillan improved to 33-1 (18 KOs) at the expense of Fredrick Lawson who retired on his stool after only one round. It was a nice confidence-booster for Santillan who took a lot of punishment in his last fight vs. Brian Norman Jr, a fight that Santillan was expected to win. However, tonight’s win should come with an asterisk as Lawson, a Chicago-based Ghanaian, is damaged goods and ought not be permitted to fight again, notwithstanding his 30-6 record. (All six of his losses, including the last three, came inside the distance.)
In a welterweight contest slated for six rounds, 19-year-old SoCal prospect Art Berrera Jr advanced to 7-0 (5 KOs) with a second-round TKO over Juan Carlos Campos (4-2) who fights out of Sioux City, Iowa. Referee Wes Melton lost his balance as he stepped in to stop the one-sided affair with a nano-second remaining in round two and went flying into the ropes, but was seemingly unhurt.
In a major surprise, Cesar Morales, a former Mexican national amateur champion, lost his pro debut to unheralded Kevin Mosquera, a 23-year-old Ecuadorian. A flash knockdown in the opening minute of final round factored into the result. The judges had it 39-36 and 38-37 for Mosquera (3-0-1) and 38-38.
The night did not start well for Morales’ trainer Robert Garcia who had five fighters in action tonight.
In the lid-lifter, 21-year-old Las Vegas lightweight DJ Zamora, a protege of the late Roger Mayweather, improved to 15-0 (10 KOs) with a second-round stoppage of Argentine import Roman Ruben Reynoso (22-6-2). Zamora put Reynoso on the canvas in the opening round with a left to the solar plexus and knocked him down in the second round with a counter left to the chin. Reynoso made it to his feet, but had no beef when the fight was waived off. The official time was 1:56 of round two.
Bouts involving former Olympians Lindolfo Delgado and Richard Torres Jr plus two compelling world title rematches round out the 10-fight card. TSS correspondent Phil Woolever is ringside. Check back later for his post-fight reports.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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