by David P. Greisman

Light heavyweight contender Thomas Williams Jr. is coming off a loss in which he was put away in four rounds. He wants another shot at the person who put him there — 175-pound champion Adonis Stevenson.

“No one can say I was outclassed and I didn’t belong there, in my personal opinion and from people I spoke with,” Williams told krikya360.com. “I just got caught. I was in the fight, in an entertaining fight. I made it very entertaining. I was able to do some things that no one was able to do against the guy, because I prepared myself well. My trainers prepared me well. I just got caught with a shot that I didn’t see. Sometimes that happens in boxing.”

Williams was knocked down in the first, but he came back and was landing well on Stevenson and pushing the champion back. Then came another knockdown and the end in the fourth.

“When he caught me is when I wasn’t pressing the issue,” Williams said. “He caught me stepping back. When I was coming forward, he was backing up. He caught me stepping back, going away from the game plan. I should’ve kept my foot on the gas, going forward and giving him relentless pressure. He only caught me when I retreated back.

“I feel like I can beat him. I felt like I let him off the hook. I honestly feel like that. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about that. If I had never switched my game plan that was working — I still don’t know to this day why I switched up.”

Stevenson will owe a mandatory defense to the winner of this month’s fight between Eleider Alvarez and Lucian Bute. Williams, meanwhile, is facing Marcus Browne on Feb. 18 in Cincinnati on Showtime. Williams sees a rematch as highly plausible for afterward, and not just because they share an adviser in Al Haymon.

“That’s the easiest fight to make,” Williams said. “If Adonis Stevenson goes and beats one of them, the public would love to see me and Adonis Stevenson fight again. No one would cry about that fight, I don’t think. I think it’d be a good fight again. I think it’ll probably be in high demand if I blast Marcus: ‘This guy is really the truth. He just got caught. Give this guy another shot.’”

Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at or internationally at . Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com