By CompuBox

With expectations high for Saturday’s bantamweight showdown between Fernando Montiel and Nonito Donaire, CompuBox looks back at another highly-anticipated bantamweight fight, Carlos   Zarate vs. Alfonso Zamora from April 23, 1977. 

What a tremendous action fight, as it exceeded even the highest of expectations -- and what expectations they were. After all, they were two undefeated world champions with a combined record of 74-0 (73 KO) and there were only two disappointments. First, in the fight's first minute, a man wearing a t-shirt, gray shorts and socks with no shoes jumped into the ring. The fighters weren't touched and a half-dozen riot police ended up roughly ejecting him from the ring and dragging him away. The second disappointment was that neither man's title (Zarate's WBC strap and Zamora's WBA belt) were on the line.

The shorter Zamora had to come to Zarate and come he did in the first with a whirlwind assault of power shots. He carried the first round fairly easily as Zarate struggled to establish his long-range game. The fight began to turn in the second when Zarate began landing an assortment of hooks, crosses and long-armed blows and that advantage ballooned in the third when he scored a knockdown with less than 20 seconds remaining via a short right to the chin. The fourth saw Zarate score two more knockdowns...the first with a right cross to the back of the head as Zamora kneeled to escape the assault along the ropes and the second with a follow-up flurry of pinpoint shots.

As Zamora rolled over on his back, his manager and father Alfonso Zamora Jr. threw a white towel into the ring that landed on his son's face. The father then made a beeline toward Cuyo Hernandez's, Zarate's manager. The two men had popped off in the Mexican newspapers and Zamora Jr. wanted nothing more than to destroy the manager of the man who just destroyed his son. The two struggled briefly but were separated.

Just another wild night at the Fabulous Forum. 

Here’s the breakdown:

CompuBox PunchStat Report

They combined to throw nearly 600 punches in 10 minutes of all-out action and land nearly 200- 156 of which were power shots.   That’s an average of 90 punches thrown per round for each fighter- 30 more than the bantamweight average.  They landed combined 47 power punches per round- double the bantamweight average!