Williams might be too good for his own good

He is a boxer named Williams, but you might think of him as Too Tall Paul.

He is long, lean and lethal. He is also fast becoming the greatest example of a man in a Catch-22 situation since Joseph Heller created Yossarian.

Before Paul Williams beat the veteran Winky Wright on Saturday night in a 160-pound match at the Mandalay Bay Special Events Center, his biggest problem had been getting good fighters to fight him.

After he beat Wright by unanimous decision, his bigger problem will be getting good fighters to fight him. You could almost sense all the other boxers, from 147 pounds up to 167, changing their addresses and phone numbers.

Fighting Williams is like sticking your head out the window during a cyclone. The 27-year old from Augusta, Ga., threw 1,086 punches. He threw 104 in the first round and 106 in the 12th. The punches never stopped. Your arms got tired just watching.

The statistical crew started cramping up at their keyboards in the sixth round. Of the 667 power punches Williams threw -- power punches being anything other than a jab -- he connected on 177. There probably were more connections, but after a while, they all became a blur.

Williams is 6 feet 3. His biographical information says 6-1, but that’s because 6-1 is horrifying enough for all those 5-8 and 5-9 guys in the weight classes he frequents. That makes Williams perhaps the only athlete on earth who underestimates his height.

In this fight, he had 10 years and a 10-inch reach advantage on the veteran Wright, who hadn’t fought for nearly two years and, by about the third round -- or 400 punches in -- had to be questioning his own sanity for doing this.

Only Wright would have lasted the entire 12 rounds. He brought a 51-4-1 record into this fight, and the majority of those victories were achieved by great defense and counter-punching. If Wright were a football coach, he’d be a defensive coordinator.

But by the time his gloves and chin and face and rib cage had fended off more than 1,000 punches, he had to wonder how that buzz saw got inside a casino arena.

“He was tall and awkward and really busy,” Wright said. “There were just a lot of punches coming from a lot of different directions, and I didn’t know how to dodge them.”

Williams was like a hyperactive energizer bunny, Gumby on an adrenaline rush. He started each round with a rush, a flurry of punches and a smile. Ended each the same way.

The victory, in front of a gathering of 5,425 in a place that holds more than twice that many, brought Williams’ record to 37-1. He lost once to Carlos Quintana last year and avenged that a few months later by knocking out Quintana in the first round.

“I expected Winky Wright to take the big shots,” Williams said, “and he did. I felt in the first round like I did in the 12th.”

Williams credited his training regime, including running seven miles a day, for much of that. There are several dozen boxers who would be happy to sponsor his Olympic track career.

Dan Goossen is Williams’ promoter. He also faces the toughest task in boxing right now: conning another fighter into getting in the ring with Williams. If anybody is up to the task, it is Goossen.

He said he talked to Oscar De La Hoya, Wright’s promoter as president of Golden Boy Promotions, about maybe getting Bernard Hopkins down in weight and ready. He said he also talked to Shane Mosley, who is looking around for another big fight, probably at 147 pounds.

“Shane said, ‘Are you nuts?’ ” Goossen reported.

Which, of course, immediately puts Mosley in the common sense wing of boxing’s Hall of Fame.

“There’s nobody we wouldn’t fight,” Goossen said, knowing full well that the problem is not on his end.

Goossen’s promotion company scored nicely in the main undercard, when his heavyweight star, Chris Arreola, took out a weary-looking Jameel McCline with a couple of hard right chops to the head in the fourth round. McCline went down in sections and stayed there.

The unbeaten 28-year-old Arreola was looking for an impressive show to validate his wishes to be a title player on the heavyweight scene. McCline had fought for the title four times, and that resume alone might have been enough, even though McCline, soon to be 39, weighed in at 271 Friday and didn’t appear to miss any meals between then and fight time.

“I want to convince the fans that I will fight the best,” Arreola said.

There’s always next time.

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bill.dwyre@latimes.com.