By Cliff Rold
Friday night on Telefutura, an express train turned slow freight that can otherwise be known as the career of Los Angeles Middleweight Sergio Mora (19-0-1, 4 KO) attempts to find the rails. Mora was the winner of the first and most viewed season of The Contender as of May 2005. That’s still about all his career has added up to.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
The possibility of a potential commercial star in boxing whose knockout percentage hovers just above negative numbers is such that Mora’s reality TV victory could be seen as the ultimate lottery ticket. Effective management would have had him in front of as many eyes as possible, as many times as possible, to build his value and prepare him for a title shot or at least a high-dollar cash out.
Instead, Mora makes only his fifth start in just shy of three years. He fought only once in 2007, a disputed draw verdict in October against prospect Elvin Ayala that may have cost him a shot at World Middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik. Mora was so disgusted with the bout that he walked out of the ring without being interviewed.
How bad has Mora’s inactivity been? Bad enough that former Heavyweight contender Gerry Cooney probably shakes his head and says “Damn, that guy doesn’t fight enough.”
It’s simply hard to fathom what has happened here. It’s not that anyone would mistake Mora as an heir apparent World champion, but coming off of that first Contender season he certainly had as much buzz, and probably more public visibility, than any active fighter not named Oscar.
That was squandered as he watched from the sidelines while the man he defeated to win that show, Peter Manfredo, secured a number of well-paying, high profile bouts with fighters like Jeff Lacy and World Super Middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe. Manfredo, like Mora, was never an heir apparent but he found a way to make what he had work for him.
Off of the Ayala draw, not to mention turning down a shot at then-World Middleweight champion Jermain Taylor in the spring of last year, it is almost like Mora is starting over.
Mora’s fight Friday comes against frazzled Mexican veteran Rito Ruvalcaba (32-8, 28 KO); Ruvalcaba’s record looks better than it is when one considers that he has lost 6 of his last eleven and five of those by knockout. The last time Ruvalcaba stepped in the ring, in September 2004, he was stopped in 38 seconds by Jose Luis Zertuche. The best thing that can be said of this bout is that Mora might get himself a knockout.
That in turn might result is some aesthetic progress. That it is his second bout in the last four months can be counted as the same. Being seen is the ring is an improvement over being heard and somewhat forgotten outside of it; somewhat because Mora does have people who remember him.
While not the ratings success it was hoped to be, the network version of The Contender did build a faithful following and that following got invested in the story of a polite kid who liked to read between brawls. It would take little to build some momentum for him and make a Mora-Pavlik fight possible again. The hardcore faithful might not care for such a bout, but there’s little doubt it could sell handily if built right.
It’s hard to say whether Mora’s ultimate lottery ticket is lost but it surely has been misplaced. It will take more than a Ruvalcaba win to find it. If the boxing calendar reaches June and the interested are again asking “When is Mora going to fight again?” then it might be time to ask if Mora can ever truly cash in.
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
