By Keith Idec

Thomas Williams Jr. thinks anyone prognosticating his fight against Adonis Stevenson based on the last time he faced a southpaw is making a mistake.

Former light heavyweight title-holder Gabriel Campillo (25-8-1, 12 KOs), who was 35 and had already suffered six losses, stopped Williams, also a southpaw, after five rounds in their nationally televised August 2014 fight. That remains Williams’ lone loss, but it stained his otherwise perfect professional record.

It’s among the reasons why Williams (20-1, 14 KOs) is a 4-1 underdog entering his shot at Stevenson’s WBC light heavyweight championship Friday night in Quebec City, Canada. Williams nevertheless considers the Campillo loss the driving force behind the improvement he expects will help him pull off an upset against Quebec’s Stevenson (27-1, 22 KOs) in the main event of a Spike telecast from Videotron Centre (9 p.m. ET).

“I believe everything happens for a reason,” Williams said during a recent conference call. “Everything is in God’s plan before we even know about it. I believe the Campillo fight was a blessing in disguise. It definitely gave me the motivation and the will to just push harder, and anyone who’s watching boxing can absolutely see that.”

The 28-year-old Williams, of Fort Washington, Maryland, was ahead on two of the three scorecards when the Campillo match was stopped following the fifth round (49-46, 49-46, 47-48).

By then, the cut over Williams’ left eye, the first laceration of his career, and a bloody nose had become significant factors in their scheduled 12-rounder for the NABO light heavyweight title. Williams, obviously bothered by the cut, didn’t protest when a ringside physician suggested to referee Ray Corona that he stop the bout before the sixth round of their ESPN2 main event began in Shelton, Washington.

“If you go back to the fight, anyone who watched it knows I was winning the fight,” Williams said. “I just got cut. You know, some things happened. I mean, let’s not sit here and talk like Campillo was really beating me up. I think the score was like 48-46 when they stopped the fight. I wasn’t having any trouble like that. It’s not like he really beat me. It’s more like I beat myself. But I never really had a problem fighting a southpaw. A southpaw is basically, you know, it’s a little easier than fighting a right-handed person, honestly.”

Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.