By Cliff Rold
He’s one of the ten best fighters in the world and the reigning champion of the Jr. Flyweight division but…
He is 5’0 tall.
He is lacking in power.
He is 108 lbs.
He is 33-years old.
All those is’s don’t change most important one on the docket. Puerto Rico’s Ivan Calderon (31-0, 6 KO, WBO/Ring) is in the final stretch of his preparations for a rematch with Mexico’s Hugo Cazares (26-4-1, 19 KO). Their first battle, waged one year ago, was the toughest fight of Calderon’s career and a highlight of the 2007 Boxing calendar.
Still, the rematch carries an air of anti-climax. It’s a solid destination, but it doesn’t feel like it leads anywhere.
On paper and off, the attributes listed at the top for Calderon have never really been desirable in the pursuit of Boxing stardom. Slick southpaws that befuddle rather than bewilder are rarely desired as opposition period. Calderon hasn’t been an exception; he’s struggled for air time and headlines a small Pay-per-View card this weekend that caters to the niche of Boxing fans that enjoy quality regardless of size. No one has ever doubted the skill set Calderon brings, but in chasing a place in history he is limited as much by the era he fights in as he is by any of the natural factors against him.
The fight one year ago gave fans a measure of the fighting man inside Calderon. Building an early lead against the 5’5 Cazares, size became an almost deciding factor late in the fight.
Almost.
As described in this site’s initial report, in the eighth round “the bouts size advantage in weight and height 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.”
In other words, it was a damn good fight.
Calderon maintained the advantage through the championship rounds and made Cazares’ title his own after a lengthy reign as WBO titlist at 105 lbs. This Saturday night, there is every reason to believe that Calderon will again confront rocky moments. Cazares is still taller, still naturally bigger, still younger at 30 years of age. It’s a fine match, just as it was the first time around.
It is also probably the best Calderon can ask for. With no slight to what should be an excellent fight, but there are other fights which would be equally if not more intriguing in the Jr. Flyweight class and bouts with IBF titlist Ulises Solis (27-1-2, 20 KO) or WBC titlist Edgar Sosa (32-5, 17 KO) would both come without the baggage of the scale.
As explored earlier this week by BoxingScene’s Jake Donovan, weight looms large over Calderon-Cazares II. Cazares struggled mightily to squeeze his frame into this division one year ago and, in his lone fight since last August, weighed in as a Jr. Bantamweight at 113 lbs. His weight struggles were made obvious a year ago by the massive amount of weight he put on after the weigh-in (some reports posted him north of 120 lbs). More evidence of the obvious came by way of a lethargic start for Cazares and an inability to maintain his advantage late.
News in the lead to this bout is less than encouraging as far as the scale goes. Cazares was higher than desired at a mandated safety weigh-in one week ago and while Mark Vester’s Tuesday report on Cazares ( https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=15577 ) has him now at 112.5 lbs., four and a half pounds can be a long road to travel.
In the worst case scenario, he misses weight or comes in at weight but weakened and the fight goes the way of a rout. It could also be much ado about nothing and we get a fight every bit as good and dramatic as the fight a year ago. Cazares at something close to his best makes a fine foil for the little man many would consider the best pure Boxer active in the game right now.
There is nothing wrong with this fight…but there is something wrong with why it couldn’t be a Sosa or Solis on the coming night and there is something wrong with why it probably won’t be after. In a big picture sense, the reasons why affect Calderon’s ability to define himself in lasting terms.
Calderon stated in an interview with Fightnews.com this week that “When you’re a world champion you can't be another world champion's mandatory. Meaning other world champions at my weight will never be obligated to fight me as long as I'm a world champion. So basically the risk usually has to be worth the reward for a unification to happen. I want to make it clear that I never have avoided fighting another world champion for a unification fight. I've always wanted to unify.”
For much of Boxing’s modern history, fights contested by men at 108, or 105, pounds all fell under the same tent. Men that small were Flyweights, capped at 112. In 1975, Jr. Flyweight split the class; in 1987, Strawweight split in further, leaving three weight classes within seven pounds of each other. The WBO having gained mainstream Boxing respect in recent years, that means a possible total of 12 ‘world’ champions where once there would have been only one and no easy road to getting any of them to face off.
Arguments in favor of multiple belts and divisions can be given the sound of merit. There is a democratization which has occurred, allowing more fighters to make relatively more money. At the lowest weight classes, the disparate markets that have formed regionally allow for title fights that attract locals without any real economic incentive for settling issues of who represents the very best. Only as the fighters on the weight scale grow do those incentives develop consistently. People pay more, more often, for bigger men so unification happens fairly often in divisions like Lightweight or Welterweight.
Exceptions exist, are happening right now at 115 lbs. and happened not so long ago. When Michael Carbajal became a legitimate money draw at 108 in the mid-1990s, Boxing got his classic rivalry with Chiquita Gonzalez. By and large though, these are dramatic exceptions and reflect geographic markets lining up just right. Within such reality, fighters who could stand in comparison with the all-time greats at Flyweight and beyond become less than exceptions through no fault of their own.
Nearing the end of his eighth professional year after a turn on the Puerto Rican Olympic team in 2000, Calderon has impressive stats and he has Cazares. In another time, he almost certainly would have had more or at least more opportunities. There are excellent fighters in all three divisions of what used to be one Flyweight class. At 105, there is Japan’s Yutaka Niida; the challenges at 108 have been detailed; and at 112 there has been a stream of quality champions throughout this decade.
In a world with one Flyweight champion, or at least one champion per class, Calderon’s pool of available competition would be so much stronger, his ability to define himself greater. Instead, should he defeat Cazares again this weekend, what can he feel secure in looking forward to? Professional fighters fight for money, but at the elite level they also fight for recognition. Being recognized as very good is within reach at the bottom of the scale, but how can a fighter be great if there are more good matches out of reach than within?
It’s the sort of question that plagues the legacy of another long reigning Strawweight who moved late in life to Jr. Flyweight. Ricardo Lopez at the end of his undefeated career had stats so impressive that greatness, and Canastota, were undeniable for most. However, there will always be something missing. Opponents like Ala Violator, Saman Sorjaturong and Rosendo Alvarez were all good fighters, but they weren’t prime versions of Carbajal or Flyweights Mark Johnson and Yuri Arbachakov.
The incredible obstacles of the era meant no chance for those fighters to add Lopez to their ledger either. All great fighters miss someone in their careers, but to miss more than what was made at the elite level stains the ability to cement placement in history, and that is more of the modern history of Boxing’s smaller men than not.
So enjoy Calderon-Cazares II; support it with your dollars (only $34.95). These are good fighters and this should be a good fight. But also know that a twinge of sadness is due.
One, maybe even both, of these men may truly have had greatness in them but they may be left only to find it in each other…not because the talent pool is shallow but because the structure of Boxing too often is.
Cliff’s Notes…
This is not the weekend’s only notable fight but it is the best one. Back tomorrow with the pre-fight report card…The undercard looks okay for this one too. Nothing special, but competitive. Top Rank usually puts on good ‘Latin Fury’ shows and this should follow the rule…Also on tap, pound for pound player Cristian Mijares steps in with former World Flyweight champion Chatchai Sasakul off U.S. TV. I took a look at that one earlier this week here: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=15601…As a quick pick, I expect Heavyweight Nicolay Valuev to defeat John Ruiz in their rematch this weekend, this time without controversy…After all that Olympic coverage, I wonder if I can retrain my bladder not to react every two minutes instead of three as the fights wear on…So, Sergiy Dzinziruk vs. Joel Julio at 154 lbs.? I like it if it happens.
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
