Williams painted the town red, all right, but only with his blood

Two fighters checked into the Valley Hospital in Las Vegas late on Saturday night. The beaten challenger had the kind of face you see after ...

Two fighters checked into the Valley Hospital in Las Vegas late on Saturday night. The beaten challenger had the kind of face you see after car crashes and the champion had injured both his hands creating all that mess.

The brutal truth of Saturday’s World Boxing Council heavyweight title fight is that ‘Dr Iron Fist’ — aka Vitali Klitschko — was transformed into Dr Broken Fist by the sheer multitude of punches he landed to ‘Dynamite’ Danny Williams’ head.

So much for the ‘‘biggest day’’ of Williams’ life. To fail in other sports is to edge a ball to slip, over-hit a forehand drive on a tennis court or head a ball against a post. When men come up empty in a world title fight — the only one that will ever come their way — they suffer physical humiliation and terminal damage to their warrior selves. Their family, friends and millions of television viewers observe their emasculation. Jelly-legged, they slump on to a stool and sense their career being carried away like the sponge and its bucket of crimson juice.

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Klitschko, whose supporters turned this into a Ukrainian pro-democracy rally, connected with 296 punches. Williams found the target with just 44. Before the stoppage, Brixton’s representative was 11, 10 and 10 points behind on the three judges’ scorecards. On one card he lost the opening round by the unusually large margin of 10-7.

Four times he heard the hollow thump of his body bouncing on the canvas. The final fall, 1 min 24 sec into round eight, exhausted his capacity to soak up Klitschko’s savage and mostly unanswered blows.

Up in a commentary box, Lennox Lewis stifled an urge to intervene. Lewis told us: ‘‘I actually felt like jumping in the ring and saying, ‘Dan, let me sort this out for you’.’’

Again and again, under cross-examination, Lewis refused to categorically rule out the possibility of a comeback. His last fight, of course, was an unconvincing stoppage win against Klitschko, who was bleeding buckets when the referee called a halt. Lewis reckons he would be ‘‘nine months away’’ from being ring-fit, but he did admit: ‘‘These fights do tempt me.’’

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Britain’s former champion was critical of Williams for coming in to the ring so bulky. At 19st 4lb, he equalled the heavyweight record set by Primo Carnera in 1934, and his mobility was diminished by the extra power he loaded into his limbs. Lewis wondered: “It was a major disadvantage and the class difference was too wide.”

(The Daily Telegraph)