By Cliff Rold
On paper, it was the best fight at 108 lbs. since the mid-90s heyday of Michael Carbajal and Humberto Gonzalez. To the delight of boxing fans lucky enough to see it on a hard to find Dish Network pay-per-view offering, it turned out to be every bit that good in the ring.
Before a packed house of approximately 13,000 rabid fight fans at the Coliseo Ruben Rodriguez in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, 31-year old Ivan Calderon (29-0, 6 KO, 107.7 lbs., Ring Magazine #1 at 105 lbs.) of Guaynabo, Puerto Rico captured the Ring Magazine World junior flyweight championship by split decision from 29-year old Hugo Cazares (29-0, 6 KO, 107.7 lbs.) of Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico in a spirited, dramatic affair on Saturday night. It was the first loss for Cazares, winner of his sixteen previous fights, since December of 1999.
Calderon also captured Cazares’ WBO belt in the division.
While visibly much smaller than a champion who is known to blow up to as much as 126 lbs. prior to fights with the advantage granted by day-before-fight weigh-ins, Calderon showed no fear in taking it to Cazares throughout the first two rounds. Calderon led with right uppercuts and short straight lefts to keep his foe off balance. Darting in and out and side to side, Calderon left Cazares missing and chasing the smaller man. A hard left from Cazares near the close of the second led to a brief clinch before Calderon reset and resumed control.
The action slowed in the third, with Cazares switching from his natural southpaw to orthodox and back again, seeking any way to land his vaunted power assault but Calderon continued to land the most effective shots. In the fourth, Calderon worked the left hand overtime, scoring repeatedly at both long and short range. Attempts by Cazares to rough Calderon up in clinches did nothing to shift momentum. The fifth round was more of the same.
The pressure applied by Cazares paid small dividends in the sixth as he was able to finally land some flush shots on the slippery challenger. After a frustrating first half of the seventh that saw Cazares stung repeatedly by Calderon’s right uppercut, Cazares was cut over the right eye by an accidental head butt. Perhaps spurred by the sight of his own blood, Cazares would land his best punches of the night in the final minute of the round.
Those best punches would be bettered in the eighth. The bouts size advantage in weight and height (Cazares is 5’6 to Calderon’s 5’0) factored huge as, seemingly realizing that his title was slipping away, Cazares came out firing. He badly hurt Calderon, tackling him to the mat with worse to come.
Calderon, rising on unsteady legs, was hammered with a right hand that drove him to the mat. With a minute remaining in the round, Calderon summoned all of his professional moxy to move and slip as Cazares closed in for the kill. The bell for the round signaled that Cazares would be forced to continue his hunt.
Cazares did just that, continuing to press in the ninth and wobbling Calderon with each landed blow. The earlier aggressiveness of Calderon was reduced to a game of survival as he slipped and circled, tossing only the occasional weak shot off his back foot.
It proved a sound strategy for the challenger as the tenth round saw his legs firm back beneath him. Cazares had his moments, but the story of the frame was Calderon summoning from his champion’s heart the ability to slip bombs and fire in the pocket, landing combinations in rebuke of the champion’s single shots.
The championship rounds arrived with tension in the air. Calderon came out strong, letting Cazares know that the eighth round was far from his mind, landing excellent counter shots and shaking off what few power shots the champion could land. With seconds left in the eleventh, Calderon signaled to the crowd that he had no designs on defeat.
Loose tape on the right glove of Calderon stalled the start of the final round, giving the challenger precious time to shore his energy for the stretch. What value was added by those extra seconds was spent to the last penny by Calderon as he shimmied, shook and fired throughout. A powerful left by Cazares in the final ten seconds nearly sent Calderon to the mat again, a moment that might have had drastic consequence for the scorecards.
That moment was left unfulfilled as Calderon stayed on his feet, slipping power shots along the ropes as the bell tolled on the fight and the title reign of Cazares.
The drama continued in legendary ring announcer Michael Buffer’s reading of the scorecards. It began 115-112 Calderon…then 116-111 for Cazares…and finally…115-112…"de Puerto Rico." Calderon celebrated along with an elated crowed the new World title around his waist.
BoxingScene.com scored the bout 115-112 for Calderon.
Cazares protested the scoring, as a proud champion is expected to do after a compelling fight, and of course talk turned quickly to a rematch. What the new champion chooses will be interesting indeed. Cazares deserves his rematch, but does he deserve it before #1 contender Ulises Solis (25-1-2, 19 KO, IBF titlist) of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico gets his shot? Either the rematch, or the new match, would be welcome additions to boxing’s already awesome fall lineup.
All of this though is a question for tomorrow. On this night, the 2000 Olympian Calderon culminated a seven-year career that had already seen him through 12 defenses of the WBO’s strawweight (105 lb.) title with a gutsy exhibition of skill that did the legacies of Willie Pep and Pernell Whitaker proud. He also forced his way into any credible debate about the best fighters in the game, pound for pound. That’s enough for one day.
Tomorrow can wait.
Televised Undercard
The support bouts proved worth every cent for those in the arena and ordering from home.
Ramon Martinez lived up to the fighting tradition of his island home with a scintillating twelfth round stoppage of Daniel Jimenez. Highly anticipated by hardcore fight fans going in, the lightweight battle between the 24-year old Martinez (17-0, 10 KO, 129.6 lbs.) of Vega Baja, Puerto Rico and the 26-year old Jimenez (17-1, 10 KO, 128.9 lbs.) of El Siebo in the Dominican Republic, did not disappoint. If not for the 122 lb. World championship rematch earlier this month between Israel Vasquez and Rafael Marquez, this may well have been the fight of the year.
Jimenez controlled the bout in the first three rounds with wide power shots only to lose that control in the fourth. Martinez, using his jab and right hand, pushed Jimenez backwards while eating just enough hard leather to keep the fans screaming. A powerful right hand stunned Jimenez at the close of the fifth round and it seemed a sign of things to come as the next frame unfolded.
Martinez pressured throughout the sixth, hurting Jimenez repeatedly in the final minute of the round with thudding rights and lefts. For another man the end might have been near, but Jimenez had come to fight. The Dominican dug deep in the seventh, standing his ground and trading with Martinez, even stunning him for a moment midway through a wild seventh. The bout was rapidly becoming the sort of test of wills that makes boxing the greatest of all sports.
Jimenez showed nothing but will in the eighth, surviving a brutal battering. A series of shots from Martinez wobbled Jimenez’s legs in the closing moments of the ninth only for Jimenez to fire a crushing right to stem the tide.
All of this was prologue to the tenth, a round that left the crowd in frenzy and the fighters on the brink of collapse. Martinez continued to roll downhill, landing brutal bombs to the head of Jimenez but Jimenez dug deep into his fighting soul to launch back with the last salvos in his reserve. Each man was arm weary and unrelenting as an action-packed three-minute fistic poem reached its close.
With six minutes to go, Martinez went to the well in search of victory and found a spring Jimenez just didn’t have. Jimenez took a vicious beating in the eleventh, swinging back just enough to dissuade the referee from stopping the action. In the final round, he left the official no other choice. After crashing to the canvas off of a flurry of shots, Jimenez rose and Martinez pinned him to the ropes with power shots. The bout was finally halted at 1:01 of the twelfth round. Both of these honorable warriors can enjoy whatever well-earned vacation awaits them.
The veteran savvy of Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico’s Edel Ruiz (29-17-4, 20 KO, 125.5) proved too much for 23-year old Marcos Jimenez (10-1, 6 KO, 126 lbs.) of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic in a crowd-pleasing featherweight bout. The first two rounds looked promising for the youngster, as Jimenez scored a knockdown in the second and appeared on his way to an easy victory. However, a point-deduction for low blows in the third marked the turning point of the bout as Ruiz planted his feet and handed out the sort of lessons one can only teach after logging long rounds with the likes of former bantamweight titlist Paulie Ayala and current 130 lb. titlist Joan Guzman. A cut to Ruiz’s right eye in the fourth only fueled his drive as he continually drove Jimenez backwards until crashing him to the mat in the fifth round. Jimenez rose valiantly to little avail as a flurry against the ropes ended his night just shy of the closing bell for the frame.
In the televised 23-year old featherweight Wilfredo Vasquez Jr. (7-0, 6 KO, 126.5 lbs.) of Bayomon, Puerto Rico ruined the professional debut of one Anthony Chacon (0-1, 125.75 lbs.) with the highlight of the night, a picture perfect left hook in the opening round. Vasquez is the son of former lineal World featherweight champion Wilfredo Vasquez. Vasquez Sr. captured the crown in 1996 from Eloy Rojas, holding it until a 1998 knockout loss to "Prince" Naseem Hamed.
Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com