They last fought in December 2009 with Williams winning a controversial 12-round majority decision at the
Boardwalk Hall in
Atlantic City, New Jersey. Williams landed more shots in the fight, but Martínez landed the cleaner punches throughout. Martínez was making his first title defense after defeating
Kelly Pavlik for the
WBC,
WBO,
Lineal and
The Ring middleweight titles on April 17, 2010. Williams had also fought once since their initial meeting, winning a four-round technical decision against
Kermit Cintron in a May junior middleweight bout, after Cintron fell out of the ring and injured his head. One of the reasons it took so long to finalize Martínez-Williams II was because the Williams camp was not eager for the fight. Dan Goossen hoped to line up a big fight for Williams at welterweight, where he used to hold a title, against an opponent such as
Manny Pacquiao or
Shane Mosley. When promoter
Lou DiBella ran out of patience waiting for the Williams side to accept the fight in mid-August, DiBella cut off talks and offered the fight to junior middleweight contender
Alfredo "El Perro" Angulo, a network staple in recent years. However, when Angulo turned down $750,000, a career-high purse by more than double, Martínez's camp made another run at Williams and this time accepting the fight on November 20. ==The fight==