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Demetrius Andrade defeats Liam Williams but the numbers don’t do justice to the Welshman

IN the end, Demetrius Andrade did what was expected. He was quicker, he was cleverer, he was more accurate and he won a unanimous decision after 12 rounds of keeping his challenger at bay. Liam Williams, the tigerish and willing Welshman, also followed the script. He made the WBO middleweight titlist work hard to retain his belt, concocted the odd scare but in the end walked away with nothing but a few cuts, scrapes and concrete proof that he belongs at the top level.

Williams was on a seven-fight win streak since losing twice to domestic rival Liam Smith in two rough and tough battles at 154lbs. Andrade, though, had won 29 fights without defeat, barely a murmur of losing along the way, since turning professional in 2008 when he reached the quarter-finals of the Olympics. A first class graduate from the hit-and-not-get-hit school, Andrade was still striving for respect.

His challenger, inside the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, gained that respect after pushing Andrade but never really threatening to win. Williams hit the deck in the second round when a left hooked round his guard, quick and unsighted, to take his legs away.

“He’s a very good fighter,” Williams said after being declared the loser via two scores of 118-109 and 116-111. “He’s better than I thought to be honest. He’s very slippery and I couldn’t really get going. I hurt him a couple of times but then he was gone before I knew it.”

Andrade did what he does best. He worked hard to make things look easy, he spoiled because he could and deep down in the heart of battle he controlled the action when there was no real action at all. He made his opponent pay for the slightest mistake but Williams kept roaring forward, his jab was disciplined and at times he made Andrade’s toolkit look like it was missing the crucial pieces.

Andrade’s uppercut, from both his left and right hand, often clattered into Williams. There was a point in the eighth when it looked like the challenger might be there for the taking as a left uppercut soared into Williams’ jaw and left him bedraggled.

But Williams hauled Andrade back into the trenches. In the ninth round the Welshman sent a right cross onto the champion’s skull. The belt-holder stumbled into the ropes and instinctively held on. His legs were unsteady and, just briefly, the upset was a possibility.

The class – or experience, depending on your viewpoint – of the American showed during his times of trouble. Though unable to fight his way out of the mire, he slowed the action masterfully to ride out the storm. He was a worthy winner in the end.

“Liam Williams is hell of fighter,” the victor said. “He’s tough, strong and he gave me a hell of a fight. He got up and kept coming. That’s what happens in a dogfight.”

He wants to fight the best. He’s always wanted that and he deserves that.

“At the end of the day,” Andrade said, “I’m the champion and undefeated. Come and get it!”

As day three dawns and the culmination of the 2021 European Championships is upon us, pick of the day for JudoInside is the men’s U90kg category. With Georgia yet to announce their representative in this weight class, tomorrow sees Lasha Bekauri and Beka Gviniashvili competing in what may prove to be their second most important contest of 2021.

To allow selected athletes to prepare both mentally and physically for Tokyo, Georgia won’t want to leave it until the eleventh hour to finalise their Olympic squad.

Sitting in 4th and seventh place respectively on the world ranking list, with only 241 points separating them going into tomorrow’s contest, it’s little wonder that this epic battle is coming down to the wire.

With Gviniashvili giving way to Liparteliani at -90kg in Rio 2016, he remarkably still managed to qualify for the tournament, fighting up a weight at -100kg, taking Gold in the Baku Grand Slam and the Samsun Grand Prix that year, adding a Bronze medal at his home Grand Prix in Tbilisi and fifth at the Tokyo Grand Slam all at the heavier weight. Eventually taking 7th place in Rio.

Liparteliani’s move to -100 after achieving the -90kg Olympic silver medal behind Japans Mashu Baker, saw the way clear for his compatriot at the lighter weight going into the run up to Tokyo.

The rise of Bekauri

In the same year that Gviniashvili was on the chase for Rio at -100kg, 15 year old Lasha Bekauri was a young -60kg Georgian Cadet taking his first taste of major international success playing a key role in Georgia’s victory in the European Cadet Team Championships in Vantaa Finland.

Like Gviniashvili before him, his ascent through the age banded categories was nothing short of stratospheric, their careers from a young age are so remarkably similar as to appear uncanny.

Both players took Gold at the Cadet European and Cadet World Championships. Gviniashvili won the Junior European Championships three times, taking his first Gold in Sarajevo aged 18, Bekauri was 19 when he won in Vantaa Finland.

Both went on to win two World Junior Championships, Gviniashvili taking his first the day before his 19th birthday in Ljubljana, Bekauri was 18 when he took the first of his junior world titles in Nassau.

Gviniashvili won the first of many IJF Tour major titles aged 18 at the Samsun Grand Prix, adding the World Masters in Rabat in 2015 and St Petersburg in 2017 as well as many more Grand Slams and Grand Prix’s along the way.

Bekauri announced his arrival at the top of the senior world stage aged just 19, taking the IJF World Masters title in Qingdao China in December 2019. This remarkable achievement signalling for all the world, that Georgia has a new kid on the block at -90kg, in contention for a place at the Tokyo Olympic Games.

This year’s battle

While Gviniashvili took silver behind Nöel Van ‘t End at the 2021 IJF Masters in Doha, Bekauri was one step below him on the podium, adding a Bronze medal to the Gold he took the year before.

A month later at the Grand Slam in Tel Aviv, the roles were reversed with Bekauri taking the Gold medal, beating world number one Nikoloz Sherazadishvili in the final while Gviniashvili joined Krisztian Toth on the Bronze medal podium.

Add in to the mix the greatest players in Europe and the World and tomorrow’s event won’t be plain sailing for either of them.

In an ideal world, with Lasha top seed in Pool B and Beka leading the second half of Pool D both players would fight their way through to the Final for the opportunity to rightfully claim the Olympic berth as their own.

For neither player is it a foregone conclusion.

In a sport as capricious as judo matches can be won or lost in the blink of an eye, one lapse in concentration or one moment of brilliance from your opponent and the day is over almost before it began.

Bekauri has former World Champion Nemanja Majdov in his group, who himself has the possibility of facing former European Champion Marcus Nyman in his second match if both prevail in their first, who aged 30, has hit a remarkable run of form recently, taking the last two Grand Slams in Tbilisi and Antalya.

Gviniashvili has number 4 seed and long time adversary Krisztian Toth at the head of his group, if both reach the final of their pool history suggests Beka has a good chance of reaching the semi finals with a record of 7-1 over Toth.

If Bekauri reaches the semis, the form books would suggest he meets number one seed Sherazadishvili who sits at the top of group A.

Bekauri has beaten him twice in two outings.

Waiting for Gviniashvili if he makes it to the semis, expect to see Nöel Van t End or Mikhail Igolnikov who are the pick of the bunch in Pool C.

In their last outing Van t’ End played a tactical blinder never letting the Russian in close and beat Igolnikov in Golden Score. Levelling up their head to head matches at 1:1.

Whoever wins the rubber match will march on to the the semis to meet Gviniashvili.

Both Van ‘t End and Igolnikov are ahead in their matches with the Georgian, but he has beaten them both in the past.

That’s a lot of if’s and buts and as they say ‘if if’s were horses, beggars would ride.’

Whatever happens tomorrow we are in for a treat.

For Beka Gviniashvili and Lasha Bekauri, tomorrow could be the most important day in their illustrious careers to date.

Join us in wishing the athletes the very best and enjoy the third day from Lisbon.

Mikhail Igolnikov will be fighting for the European title on Sunday in his U90kg category. The reigning European Champion is keen on prolonging the title but since his fifth place at the IJF World Masters it’s a bit silent. Usually he always comes back strongly from a period of silence.

Whilst having a quiet year on the IJF circuit in 2019,  Mikhail Igolnikov has only lost once this year, in the Dusseldorf Grand Slam, where the Russian went on to take the Bronze medal in that event. His other outing being at the teams event at the World Championships, where he won his two matches helping Russia take the Bronze medal.

The Lieutenant in the Russian Special Forces may be a potential medallist in Tokyo, hoping to emulate fellow Circassians Vladimir Nevzorov, and Beslan Mudranov who took Gold at half middleweight in the 1976 Games in Montreal, and Gold in Rio 2016 at -60kg respectively, he looks a shoo-in for selection and not many who have followed his progression since Cadet level, would bet against him.

Mikhail Igolnikov was born on October 15, 1996 in the city of Tuapse in the Krasnodar region of Russia, though If you ask him, he proudly identifies himself as Adyghean, a Circassian enclave in the North Caucasus, the land of his forebears. A pupil of the Tuapse School of Judo, he trained under the guidance of Dzhanbolet Naguchev.

Igolnikovs transition to senior was as expected, for anyone who had followed his illustrious youth career. In 2018 he won the Senior European Championships in Tel Aviv, beating then current Senior World Champion, Nemanja Majdov in the Final, he added the Dusseldorf Grand Slam title, and the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam and helped his team to third place in the World Team Championships in Baku.

His judo style is sublime, like a watch maker, timing, precision and balance personified. He has uncanny anticipation and great counter attacks.

In what is the most stacked division on the current roster, wins are never assured and in a sport as capricious as judo, there are no dead certs.

As the seeded players await the third day in Lisbon and Igolnikov is in the same bracket as Dutch world champion Noel van ‘t End. They are 1-1 in head2head. Never discount Mikhail Igolnikov, for you can guarantee, none of his opponents are.