Liam Williams brave in defeat to Demetrius Andrade
Liam Williams lost his WBO world middleweight challenge against Demetrius Andrade by a unanimous points decision in Hollywood.
It was a nightmare start for the Welshman who was wobbled in the first round and hit the canvas in the second, but took the fight the distance.
The undefeated American used his experience and fought in eye-catching bursts, while Williams struggled to land his shots.
The judges scored the bout 118-109, 118-109 and 116-111.
There had been bad blood in the build-up to the main event, with 33-year-old Andrade unimpressed with the calibre of his mandatory opponent.
Williams, 28, had twice lost to Liam Smith in 2017 before notching up seven successive wins to earn his shot at the title.
Andrade showed little respect, but as the final bell rang at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, he certainly knew he had been in a fight.
Andrade, who now has a perfect record of 30 victories with no defeats, came out with serious intent and it looked like it was to be a short night's work.
He showed speed, power and accuracy, with Williams doing well to survive the first round after taking some heavy shots.
As he began to regain some composure in the second, Williams was floored by a right-left combination which saw him take every available second of the count to steady himself.
To Williams' credit, he was composed under pressure to survive the round, never appearing panicked at any point, and he came back with big shots in the third, and just kept chipping away to make the champion looked tired at times, especially in the ninth as he clung on to see out the round.
But Williams, who was bidding to become Wales' 13th world boxing champion, could not make him pay, and was left to rue his inaccuracy as he ran out of time.
Undercard Results
Carlos Gongora broke down Christopher Pearson inside eight rounds in the first defense of his IBO World Super-Middleweight title.
Gongora floored Pearson with a left hand and having suffered damage to his left eye from Gongora’s accurate jab for the duration, Pearson rose but took a knee once again for back-to-back KO wins for the Ecuadorian in the Hard Rock Casino, who was called a ‘dark horse’ in the division by promoter Hearn.
“I feel really happy to defend my title,” said Gongora. “This pandemic has affected us all, boxers with inactivity, so I am so happy to be able to have won the title and now defend it.
“I just followed the game plan. I wasn’t necessarily looking for the KO, because it was more going round by round and looking for opportunities, it represented itself and I was able to win the fight.
“I was really excited to return to where I won the title in December, and more importantly to keep it.
“My focus is always just to get the win, that’s all I can really do, everything else is out of my hands. Hopefully the Canelo fight is one that can be made down the line, that fight would be the cherry on top of the cake.”
Andrey Fedosov delivered a first round KO win over Mahammadrasul Majidov as the Azerbaijan man broke his right ankle after being put down by a heavy right hand by the Russian. Majidov managed to get to his feet but hampered by the injury, he was floored against by Fedosov and failed to rise a second time and had to be stretchered out of the ring.
Alexis Espino is making up for lost time with a second win in 2021 after a frustrating year, picking up a six round points win over unbeaten Ty McLeod. Espino was struck by fight cancellations through COVID in 2020 but after a KO win at the Hard Rock Stadium in February, the 21 year old got the nod on the cards 60-54, 59-55 and 59-55
Arthur Biyarslanov won the battle of the unbeatens and got good rounds under his belt, winning his first eight round clash against Israel Mercado by majority decision, with scores of 78-74, 77-75 and 76-76,
Otha Jones III and Jorge Castenada served up an eight round war and it was Castenada that edged a war via majority decision, 77-75, 76-75 with one judge unable to split them – watch that great clash here.
In the opening bout of the night, Florida’s own Aaron Aponte continued the unbeaten start to his pro career with a fun four round shut-out win over the game Javier Martinez.
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