Paul Williams, The Forgotten Warrior
By Robert Brizel, Real Combat Media Correspondent
New York, NY (December 7, 2012)– The famous names of boxing, oh how quickly they fade into obscurity. Joe Frazier, Emmanuel Steward, Angelo Dundee, Hector Camacho, Bert Sugar, Arturo Gatti, gone but not forgotten, and then slowly but surely much forgotten. Then there are those boxers like Terry Norris, Muhammad Ali, Gerald McClellan, Mills Lane and Paul Williams, living on in memory and still alive, but relegated to obscurity because of the nature of the mental and physical condition.
After a motorcycle accident in 2012 left him paralyzed from the waist down, but with a spinal cord injury which may or may not eventually heal and return leg movement, former world welterweight champion andjunior middleweight champion Paul Williams forges on. Williams lives each day uncertain of whether he will fight again or walk again, but still hopes one day soon he will walk again so he can fight again. Daniel Jacobs survived cancer and the loss of leg movement and was able to recover after one year of rehabilitation. The opportunity to walk again is a chance Paul Williams dreams of having, but in boxing, like life, many souls walk down ‘The Boulevard of Broken Dreams’.
Paul Williams was supposed to fight Canelo Alvarez for the World Boxing Council Junior Middleweight championship. Williams finally made to one of Alvarez’ fights- in a wheelchair. On that evening, Williams must have been frustrated in the realization the fighters he fought of both upper and lower caliber-including Sergio Gabriel Martinez, Erislandy Lara, Nobuhiro Ishida, Andy Kolle, Antonio Margarito, Santos Pakau, Terrance Cauthen, Marteze Logan, Laatekwei Hammond and Arturo Rodriguez-have continued their careers despite winning losing against Williams.
On May 27, 2012, Williams was in a motorcycle accident in Atlanta avoiding a car coming at him into his lane from the other direction. In rehabilitation since June 2012, Williams has now been out of the ring for over ten months, since he decisioned Nobuhiro Ishida over 10 rounds. Like McClellan and Lane, Williams has suffered a devastating setback. If Williams ever does get better, a boxing comeback would still be ill advised, given the risks and the possibility of redamaging his nervous system.
Still, the way boxing goes, fight fans would be happy to pay the pay-per-view to see Paul if Williams ever does somehow return to the ring to fight again. The key issue is not whether he should or should not return to the ring if he gets better. The key issue is athletes fade into obscurity. There are those famous names in modern athletics-Jim Thorpe, Jesse Owens, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Archie Moore, Ben Hogan, Bobby Jones, Pele, Wilt Chamberlain, Joe Namath, Ted Williams and Y.A. Title, Bill Tilden, Alexis Arguello, Mickey Mantle-who people still remember strongly.
Paul Williams ability to achieve success in rehabilitation is perhaps part mental and part physical. Williams has, in less than a year, begun to fade into obscurity. He may be forgotten completely if his physical health does not improve for the better soon. Today Paul Williams has become ‘the forgotten warrior.’ If Williams ever does get better, by the time he does, the faces of boxing may be completely different.
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