There is nothing about his upcoming fight with Luis Nery which raises cause for concern with Aaron Alameda.
The least of his worries is whether or not there will be any pre-fight drama at the scale.
Nery and Alameda collide in a secondary title fight between unbeaten junior featherweights, with their bout serving as part of a six-fight Showtime Pay-Per-View event on September 26 from a location to be determined. While Nery (30-0, 24KOs) comes in boasting championship credentials, the night will mark a considerable step up in class for Alameda. The bout will mark just the second stateside appearance for the unbeaten 27-year old from Nogales, Mexico, though vowing to turn the night into a breakout performance.
“When you see me on September 26, you are going to see what I’m made of,” Alameda vowed during a virtual press conference held on Tuesday to promote the upcoming event. “I respect Nery as a great fighter but I am going to show that I am a great fighter as well.”
Alameda (25-0, 13KOs) enters the biggest fight of his career on the heels of what will be an 18-month layoff by the opening bell, although partly attributed to the coronavirus pandemic which canceled their planned March 28 meet in Las Vegas. His prior ring appearance came last April, scoring a 3rd round knockout of Jordan Escobar in his return to the 122-pound division.
His ring résumé pales miserably in comparison to that of countryman. Nery hit the pinnacle of his career in a 4th round knockout win over long-reigning WBC bantamweight titlist Shinsuke Yamanaka in August 2017, only to have to answer to drug testing results which showed traces of Zilpaterol. Detection of the substance was met with a sympathetic tone by the WBC, attributing the fallout to many Mexican athletes who test positive for the banned substance Clenbuterol through meat contamination.
Nowhere nearly as forgiving was Nery’s failure to make weight for his rematch with Yamanaka. The Tijuana-bred southpaw came in three pounds over the bantamweight limit, conceding his title at the scale ahead of a 2nd round knockout win. The weigh-in debacle resulted in Nery receiving a lifetime ban from the Japanese Boxing Commission.
The lesson was never learned, as he’s twice struggled to make weight on separate occasions in 2019. Nery needed two tries to make weight for an eventual 9th round knockout of Juan Carlos Payano last July, only for his planned November 2019 clash with Puerto Rico’s Emmanuel Rodriguez to get canceled after missing the mark and refusing to shed the excess weight.
Now campaigning at junior featherweight, the hope is that weight will no longer be an issue.
It most certainly won’t be for his opponent.
“That’s his problem. That’s not my problem,” insists Alameda. “Whether he makes weight or doesn’t make weight, it doesn’t affect me at all. I’m just focused on what I need to do on September 26, against Luis Nery.
“I don’t know if he’s going to make weight or not, but that is none of my concern. I don’t have any problem making weight, and that is all I need to concern myself with.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox
