By Thomas Gerbasi
The fans have spoken in southern California, and Mauricio Herrera has heard them.
“You’re the true 140 champion.”
“There’s Herrera, he beat Garcia.”
“There’s the man that got robbed.”
All for a 35-year-old junior welterweight who has lost two of his last three bouts. At least that’s what the record says. In the eyes of most observers, Herrera beat Danny Garcia and Jose Benavidez last year, and as he prepares for a Saturday bout with Hank Lundy at the LA Sports Arena, those same observers look at this not as a 10 round NABF title bout, but a world championship defense.
He appreciates that support.
“It’s real satisfying,” Herrera said. “They (the fans) call me the real champ and it keeps reminding me and keeps me positive. That makes me confident, so I have to stay at that level and fight as tough and as hard as in those fights (against Garcia and Benavidez), and I can’t slack off. If they believe I’m the true 140-pound champion, I’ve got to keep training like I really am to stay on top.”
Herrera’s promoter, Golden Boy Promotions, hasn’t looked at the Riverside product as a 1-2 fighter in his last three. Company founder Oscar De La Hoya dubbed Herrera his Fighter of the Year for 2014, and he showed his support by putting Herrera in Saturday’s main event, which airs on HBO Latino. It’s the kind of backing many fighters on three-fight winning streaks don’t get, but Herrera is getting used to being the A side.
“It’s a little different now getting so much attention, but it’s pretty exciting,” he said. “It probably won’t hit me all too much until the day of the fight.”
On the day of the fight, Herrera will be in there with a fighter in Lundy that won’t be too hard to find. That’s the good news. The bad news is that many judges score aggression, not necessarily effective aggression, and rarely reward the subtle things that Herrera does so well under another one of the scoring criteria, ring generalship. But here’s the real trouble for the California veteran. If you’re coming off fights you believed you won and most people agree with you, how do you go back to the gym to fix something you don’t believe is broken?
“I’m not thinking I lost those fights, so I’m thinking the same way, but you always look for improvements, even if you win a fight, and you’re always perfecting everything, trying to learn new things,” he said. “I know what I can do in the ring and what my natural style is, and maybe I try to add other stuff that I don’t have. They say I don’t have power, but I believe I have decent enough power. Even so, I’ve been working a little bit on that and being more aggressive, but it’s kind of hard because you don’t know what the judges are looking for, and I don’t really want to change my style. It’s kind of hard anyway, but when you try changing it, you can go wrong. Maybe my natural style will beat Lundy and I won’t have to change anything.”
The last part seems to be the direction Herrera is heading in, showing the stubbornness all top-level fighters hold in their back pocket.
“A lot of times I go back and just go ‘you know what, screw it; the judges are the ones that should be changing, not me,’” he laughs. “I always end up going back to my style because I know that’s what’s been working from the start.”
He pauses, as if making the decision to stand his ground right then and there.
“I’m sticking to the style I know best.”
Maybe this time he’ll get what he deserves. That’s all “El Maestro” wants. He doesn’t want favors or special treatment. If he legitimately loses a fight, he’ll accept it, but if he legitimately wins one, he wants his hand raised. And if treated fairly, he’ll be able to do what he loves the most without having to hate it at the same time.
“I appreciate everything I have in life,” he said. “I’m a family guy, I have a lot of family and friends, and they’re all positive about this, and I just keep going because I love boxing. I know fighters have gotten bad decisions and it’s dirty at times, but it’s a sport that I love and hate at the same time and I just gotta keep being positive. I have a lot of appreciation for the life that I’m living now, I’m a happy guy and I feel things will change. The next fight will clear things out, and I have that hope.”
But what happens when those decisions start going his way, he picks up a title and isn’t the underdog fighting the system anymore?
Herrera laughs.
“I won’t know until I get there. I’m just going along and I’m real happy with where we’ve gone so far. I’m keeping positive, and I just hope more good things come.”