Tremaine Williams Aims At A Title Run To Honor Late Trainer

Make FightsATW Your Preferred Combat Sports Source

Enjoy our boxing and wrestling coverage? Add Fights Around The World as a Preferred Source on Google so our latest stories can show up more often in your Top Stories.

Add FightsATW on Google

Tramaine Williams aims to accomplish the mission set forth by his first coach, Brian Clark.

Williams will face Dannis Aguero Arias in an eight-round bout at the Palace Theatre in Waterbury, Connecticut. It will be held for the vacant WBC USA junior lightweight title. A win will move Williams up in the sanctioning bodies.

Clark passed away earlier this year. Williams, 21-3 (7 KOs), felt a sudden unease. He knew that something was incomplete with his career, as reflected in a conversation he once had with his first coach.

“We always spoke about completing the mission,” Williams told FightsATW. “It meant becoming a world champion, being on the pound-for-pound list. With him passing, I think that is what I am headed toward, fighting for another world title.”

Williams lone crack at the title came during the COVID era. Williams would lose to Angelo Leo in a WBO junior featherweight title fight. Williams replaced Stephen Fulton, who was originally set to challenge Leo for the August 1, 2020, bout.

Since that point, Williams, a 33-year-old from New Haven, Connecticut, has had his struggles. He is currently 2-3 in this decade, with a loss to Elijah Pierce on a regional card and a contentious split decision loss to Kevin Walsh last May. Williams adjusted and moved to Las Vegas, as he looks to give it one more go in memory of his coach.

“A year before he passed, we were sitting in a gym and talking,” Williams remembered. “Right before he got up and walked away, I call it a drop the mic moment, he said, ‘ Kid, you didn’t complete the mission.’”

The words rang hollow through the gym that day. Though Williams might not have responded immediately, he hopes to achieve one last run at greatness for his first coach.

In April, Williams stopped Aramis Solis Reyes in the fourth round. Dannis Aguero Arias, 20-4 (17 KOs), is a fighter from the Dominican Republic who enters on a two-fight losing streak. He lost to Otar Eranosyan via disqualification; before that, he was knocked out by former beltholder Guillermo Rigondeaux.

“He got me at a young age, I was nine years old,” Williams said. “A lot of people don’t know, he started Chad Dawson from scratch, he started me from scratch.”