Dannie Williams sat in his locker stall with a dejected look on his face after his unanimous ten round victory shaking his head.  If you didn’t see the fight, you would have thought Williams lost, based on his reaction.  Truth of the matter is that Oscar Cuero, a grizzly veteran, had such an unorthodox style that Williams struggled at times to land good shots consistently.  I had the fight scored 97-93 for Williams who came out blazing and then struggled with Cuero for the remainder of the fight.

“I just wanted to fight and wasn’t thinking as much as I should have been”, said Williams.  “I give myself a D+ or a C- based on what I did out there tonight.  The physical part is good and I am a dog in the gym, but I need to work on the mental. I am happy with the win, but this will not get me to the next level, I need to come back stronger the next fight.”

Williams had other things to deal with in the fight.  He hurt his hand in the second round.  His hair was flying everywhere making it hard to focus on his target, Cuero.  The hair was such a big distraction that by the time the eighth round started, Williams started the round with white athletic tape holding his obstruction higher on his head to keep it out of his line of vision.

After the fight, I asked Williams’ trainer, Jack Loew, about the hair problem.  “You can bet your bottom dollar that will get taken care of very soon“, commented Loew.

Give Cuero credit.  He took what Williams had for most of the fight.  Battered and beaten, when it seemed he was going to get knocked down, he fought back with strong combinations.  This fighter deserves praise for showing up and giving all he had. Neither fighter seemed to have much gas left by the eighth round of the scheduled ten-rounder.

Williams was introduced to the partial Youngstown crowd with much fanfare including fireworks.  He was pumped when the opening bell rang and came out throwing big shots, maybe from being wound up.  Most of those shots missed, but one caught Cuero and there was a good amount of swelling to his right eye by the end of the second round.  In the second round, Williams slipped and later in the same round, his mouthpiece became dislodged, but the rest of the first couple of rounds went to Williams.

The fourth round was probably Cuero’s best of the fight and it was three minutes that he won decisively.  In the fifth, the hair started coming undone and leaking in front of Williams line of vision.  This was a quick two-sided problem because not only was Williams unable to focus on Cuero for any length of time, but he could also not see what was coming, and took a few good shots as a result.  After the fifth, John Loew tried some tighter rubber bands, but the hair would still get in the way.  By the eighth, white athletic tape, a new hot-seller at every beauty shop from here to Akron, was used.

Williams got a second wind toward the end of the ninth and was the better fighter in the tenth to pull out the convincing victory.  One of the judges scored it 99-91, which speaks sadly of boxing scoring.  The other two were more reasonable margins and the right score.  In the end, Dannie Williams (18-1, 14 by KO) did a good job and earned another victory in his march up the 135-pound rankings.

The fight was the main event for the first-ever Ghost Promotions card at the Covelli Centre in front of a great crowd of almost 2,000 fans.  Kelly Pavlik was there and signed a lot of autographs and took pictures.  The Ghost was introduced before a fight and got a nice ovation from the best boxing fans in the world.  Pavlik is fighting inside the Covelli Centre on August 6 against Darryl Cunningham.