Danny Williams v Matt Skelton A Brutal Encounter
Danny Williams v Matt Skelton
He emerged from a brutally raw battle with former martial arts fighter Skelton to take a majority decision.
Williams, whose greatest night came when he knocked out the once-mighty Mike Tyson in four rounds in July 2004, had to dig deep to prevail against the big-hearted 39-year-old Skelton who suffered his first defeat in 19 fights.
Neither gave an inch in an intense clash, which totally atoned for the much-hyped but ultimately lacklustre clash in which Williams out-pointed Olympic gold medallist Audley Harrison at the same venue in December.
Skelton’s British title was not on the line but the British Boxing Board of Control are almost certain to declare it vacant after he lost to a fellow-Briton over the championship distance of 12 rounds.
The drama continued after the final bell as the scores were announced with the three judges split. Ian John-Lewis favoured Skelton by 115-114 but Richie Davies went for Williams by the same score and Dave Parris scored 116-113 for Williams.
Now Williams is hoping to go on and challenge the 7ft 2in, 23-stone ‘Beast from the East’ Nikolay Valuev for the WBA world title.
The tone for the fight was set in the first 20 seconds when Skelton incurred the wrath of referee Terry O’Connor for thrusting his head into Williams’ face after pushing him back onto the ropes. Then a left hook forced Williams back onto the ropes and Skelton muscled his way in.
Despite being 11 pounds lighter than Williams, who scaled a fraction over 19 stones, Skelton tried to bully the Commonwealth champion as the opening round became a test of strength.
It was far from pretty but Skelton was getting the better of the in-fighting early on.
After conceding the opening two rounds, Williams shaded the third behind his job and overall, he provided the cleaner punching.
In the fourth round when the referee called them to break, both men just kept punching and, after the bell to end the round, both sets of corner men had to race into the ring to drag them apart.
O’Connor read them the riot act before the start of the fifth and, after a powerful right from Williams, Skelton ran across the ring before regrouping.
The pair went to war as Williams landed a big over hand right only for Skelton to roar back firing punches.
In the fifth, Williams exploded a huge left hook on the side of Skelton’s jaw but the former martial arts fighter just grinned and came back fighting.
Skelton almost pushed Williams over the top rope three times in the seventh round, causing referee O’Connor to stop the fight and call for the ring ropes to be tightened.
Williams unleashed a ferocious attack a round later but Skelton, who only came to boxing in his mid-30s – four years ago – following his K-1 martial arts career in Japan, showed just what a tough man he is.
Skelton knew he had to pull something big out of the bag in the closing two rounds and he took the 11th after the pair went toe-to-toe.
Williams rallied again in the final round and there were a series of hectic exchanges which left Skelton with blood streaming from a cut on top of his shaven head.
Afterwards Williams said: “That was a very hard fight. With the style he has brought from K-1 fighting it was a very difficult fight for me. He is awkward and he is tough but, give him credit, he is a real hard fighter.”
He said he would be prepared to grant Skelton a return but would prefer to move on to bigger things.
“I would love to make the fight with Valuev. I would get myself into even better condition than I did for this.
“I have been British champion and Commonwealth champion. I have beaten everybody on the domestic scene and now it is time to move on,” he added.
