By Cliff Rold
Boxing fans often have to share their sports best fights with the general population of sports fans. Those are not bad times. For those who love the sweet science, the chance to debate the man on the street why a modern superstar like Manny Pacquiao is (or isn’t) a belonging figure with the greats is fun.
Then there are weekends like this one, weekends where boxing feels like a best kept secret. The average man on the street would walk by Jr. Flyweights Ivan Calderon and Giovanni Segura and miss them even if they looked down to see them pass. 108 lb. titans closer to five feet than six don’t engender public fascination on a wide scale very often.
That won’t change after Saturday.
It won’t matter to the packed house at the Coliseo Mario 'Quijote' Morales in Puerto Rico. It won’t matter to the hardcore fight fans who add the extra $39.95 to their cable bill for August. For those who are interested, this fight will be as big as anything boxing can provide.
Puerto Rico’s 35-year old Calderon (34-0-1, 6 KO) is recognized as the Jr. Flyweight’s ‘real’ World champion, six defenses into his run as Ring’s and the WBO’s beltholder. Since winning, and then defending, his crown against Mexico’s Hugo Cazares, Calderon has been short on what could be considered real threats. A pure boxer if there ever was one, reliant on speed, reflexes, and legs to win, Calderon is assumed closer to the end of his career than his peak.
Enter Segura (24-1-1, 20 KO), a Mexican power puncher in his prime at age 28 and with a four-inch height advantage (albeit at 5’4). The lone loss of his career, a decision versus Cesar Canchila in 2008, was reversed with a fourth round stoppage the following year. It was the first of five straight wins inside six rounds.
After Calderon, Segura is widely considered the best in the world at 108 lbs. He brings more than power and one side of the latest chapter in a storied ethnic fistic rivalry. The hot feud between Puerto Rico and Mexico guaranteed a hostile crowd for Segura on its own. There will be an extra spice added to the cauldron to help whip the paying masses into frenzy.
Slated to be in Segura’s corner is Javier Capetillo.
Capetillo was the trainer for Antonio Margarito when Margarito walked down Puerto Rican idol Miguel Cotto in 2008.
Capetillo was the trainer in January 2009 when Margarito was caught with a foreign substance in his gloves prior to a knockout loss to Shane Mosley. Speculation about whether there was anything more than leather landing on Cotto has ensued since. Calderon’s camp has expressed concern about Capetillo’s presence and states they will watch the hand wrapping process carefully.
Of course they will. In doing so, it will probably mean much ado about nothing in the ring but it adds an element of drama (and boxing seediness because, really, what is Capetillo doing near a big fight?).
It all adds up to a rare treat for those who follow the smallest divisions. How rare speaks to the tough road the smallest men follow as they attempt to be prove they are more than merely good.
Once upon a time there was but one Flyweight division. Anything from 112 lbs. on down, for decades, sufficed for that single class. That changed in 1975 with the twin births of WBC and WBA titlists at a new 108 lb. weight class. While the new class drew initial guffaws, strong early reigns from Luis Estaba (WBC) and Yoko Gushiken (WBA) proved the old adage that fighters make the belts (and, ultimately, the divisions).
In the approximately 35 years of Jr. Flyweight history, some genuinely great fighters have made their mark. Panama’s Hilario Zapata, Korea’s twin titans Jung Koo Chang and Myung Wuh Yuh, Dodie Boy Penalosa of the Philippines, and Thailand’s Saman Sorjaturong are among the best the class has had to offer.
Despite those considerable talents, clashes between beltholders have been few and far between. Estaba and Gushiken never shared a ring. The reigns of Chang and Yuh overlapped for a time but they never faced off. It was not until Michael Carbajal (IBF) and Humberto Gonzalez (WBC) squared off for the first of a thrillogy in 1993 that belts were unified at 108. They stayed unified through Carbajal’s initial win, Gonzalez’s subsequent pair of revenge victories, his 1995 Fight of the Year defeat at the hands of Sorjaturong and the Thai’s first defense.
Sorjaturong vacated the IBF belt after that and more has mostly been less ever since. Only one unification bout has taken place in the years since, a 2003 draw between Rosendo Alvarez (WBA) and Victor Burgos (IBF).
Unification fights are not, simply because they are unification fights, an indication of the highest quality. Four (and more) belts floating around can allow lesser fighters title honors. It’s still, more often than not, a hell of a gauge.
When literally whole generations go by without beltholders squaring off, the chances for a fighter to truly define themselves as great in a division are more difficult. Clash matters. So does money and, with titlists typically defined regionally more than globally in the lightest weight classes, the price of unification can be higher than the reward. It’s easier to promote a Thai fighter in Thailand, a Central American fighter in Central America, and leave the chips collecting where they are.
Lack of clash is a problem in all weight classes from time to time but, in a place like Jr. Flyweight, is endemic. Jr. Flyweight is not alone. In 1987, classic Flyweight was further splintered by the birth of Strawweight, or 105 lbs.
Since the inception of Strawweight, the only unification fights contested featured a Ricardo Lopez at the end of nearly a decade atop the class. In 1997, the WBC titlist Lopez stopped Alex Sanchez to win the WBO belt. In 1998 he contested his next two contests with Rosendo Alvarez, suffering his lone blemish in a cut shortened draw in their first unification attempt and winning the WBA honors in the rematch despite Alvarez missing weight by a few pounds.
And Flyweight? Flyweight hasn’t had a unification fight during the lifespan of either of its lighter cousin classes, plus close to another decade back to the initial WBC/WBA split in the mid 1960s.
Calderon-Segura is the exception to the rules of engagement at the bottom of the boxing scale.
It is also an exceptional match, period.
Anytime the two best fighters in their weight class square off, boxing is getting something right. This might not be as big as boxing gets, but it doesn’t get any bigger right now at Jr. Flyweight.
This is a superfight for superfans, a best kept secret worth sharing among the fraternity of true sweet science lovers.
Weekly Ledger
But wait, there’s more, including a link back to a look at some of the best at Jr. Flyweight over the years…
Top 20 Jr. Flyweights: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=19656
Champ for Champ 2010: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=30213
Picks of the Week: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=30290
Cliff’s Notes… Look for the pre-fight report card for Calderon-Segura on Friday…Jean Pascal-Bernard Hopkins sounds like decent business but Jean-Pascal versus Tavoris Cloud or a rematch with Chad Dawson sound like fin fights. Count this as a vote for the latter options…It’s comical that a war of words has broken out between David Haye and Audley Harrison. It’s more comical that Haye remains mute on the subject of the Klitschko’s…The Cruiserweight “Super Six” as proposed could end up, fight for fight, even better as a viewing experience than the Super Middleweight version. Cross fingers, and not just on its happening…Of course, the Super Six at 168 lbs. is down four with Mikkel Kessler’s eye injury taking him out of action. Disappointing? Sure. But while Kessler is wished a health in recovery, a ‘final four’ of sorts can still (for now) be assumed. At the end, it will mean the tournament gave the sport nine high quality fights with even more possibilities beyond. That’s two more fights than a clean, eight-man elimination would have provided. The Super Six might not have turned out exactly as planned, but this should still be seen as a positive.
Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel, the Yahoo Pound for Pound voting panel, and the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com
