MORA ARRIVES, WILLIAMS RETURNS
Saturday night was full of heavy stakes in the careers of four fighters from 147 to 154 pounds all in need of big wins. By the end of the evening, one fighter recovered from a February stumble by exacting emphatic revenge while another who had spent his career biding his time finally found the right moment to strike.
MORA SURPRISES FORREST AND THE REST OF THE BOXING WORLD
When Sergio Mora turned down a fight with Jermain Taylor last year, most boxing experts figured it was because the “Latin Snake” didn’t like his chances against the then undisputed Middleweight Champion. Known only for winning the first season of The Contender and then eking out a controversial victory in the rematch with Peter Manfredo, Mora had thus far given no indication that he was ready to become a champion.
Saturday night, Mora finally took that step up and rose to the occasion when he topped Vernon Forrest for the WBC Junior Middleweight Championship.
Mora is far from the most likeable of characters in boxing, but Forrest decided to cast himself as the villain in the bout when he unleashed a diatribe against the challenger. Specifically, he referred to The Contender’s first champion as a “pretender.” Like an experienced veteran, Mora used the verbal lashing as motivation to win his first legitimate championship.
Forrest, whose only losses came at the hands of Ricardo Mayorga in 2003, looked strong early as he had against Carlos Baldomir and Michelle Piccirillo last year. The champion hammered Mora with a left hook to the body, followed by hard right hand to the head in the first round, but Mora, who usually fights as a middleweight, showed he was unaffected when he smiled in response and even talked to Forrest after the bell. Forrest grinned all the way back to his own corner but began breathing hard as soon as he took his seat on the stool.
The second round was closely contested until Forrest caught Mora with an uppercut, but again Mora shrugged off the blow by shaking his head at the champion. Mora became more aggressive in round three but earned a warning from Referee Richard Flaherty for landing rabbit punches. Undeterred, Mora continued to turn up the attack in round four, the first round he clearly won to put himself in the fight.
With Mora holding on, Forrest ripped the challenger with several sharp punches in round five until Flaherty separated the fighters, warning the champion for hitting behind the head and Mora for hitting on the break. After eating a left hook, Mora held again, only to be hit by several rights from Forrest while imploring Flaherty to stop the action. Once free, Mora responded by smiling again and clowning against the ropes but quickly regrouped, stuffing in several left hooks as Forrest now began holding. Mora arguably did enough to steal the round but spent the last thirty seconds staying away from the champion to avoid losing ground – a tactic he employed in the fourth round as well. The crowd booed his decision, but Mora nodded to the fans as if to say he had things under control.
In round six, Mora took control in a big way when he landed a hard right hand that momentarily stunned Forrest. Some stuffing left hooks and another right followed as Mora jumped on Forrest with his best rally of the night. The challenger connected with an uppercut as well, but Forrest responded with a low blow that earned a warning from Flaherty. Though the referee warned both men not to retaliate with more low blows, the boxers went low immediately thereafter as the fight got messy. Mora continued to score with combinations as Forrest looked slow and uncomfortable, though he did manage to land the better punches, even if they were one at a time, for the last minute.
Mora received two more warnings for rabbit punching in round seven, but Flaherty had yet to take a point. The “Latin Snake” appeared to edge the round simply because Forrest wouldn’t fight. When he did, he seemed to score fairly easily. Such was the case in round eight when Forrest led with the jab and drilled Mora with a straight right against the ropes that had the challenger fleeing. Midway through the round, Forrest landed another low blow, but Flaherty had shown he wasn’t going to make good on his warnings, proving himself one of the worst kinds of referees: all talk and no action. Mora seemed to agree, shoving Flaherty out of his way when the official broke the action the next time. Still Flaherty felt the need to interject himself a moment later, telling the fighters to break on his command, but he had thus far given neither a reason to heed his words. Amidst the refereeing, Forrest won a close round.
In round nine, Mora took a swing at Forrest on a break, but Forrest hammered him with a right hand in return. Forrest was easily winning the round until Mora dug deep to unleash a huge rally, starting with a left hook against the ropes, in the last thirty seconds. The champion fought back with successful single shots, but Mora continued to mug him on the ropes, landing left hands from a southpaw stance. Forrest headed away with his head down at the bell as Mora stared after him. On his stool, Forrest looked like he had little left to give in defense of his title.
Sure enough, Forrest was unable to cope with the hand speed of the younger, hungrier fighter in the final three rounds. Mora beat Forrest in every facet of the game, including imposing his jab on the champion. After nailing Forrest with a straight left at the end of round ten, Mora slammed his gloves down in front of the crowd, signaling that he had more when it counted most, and that was ultimately the difference. Following the eleventh round, Mora went so far as to declare himself the new champion while Forrest headed to his corner with his lip bloody and his mouth hanging open. While round twelve was a brawl that saw some quality action due to Forrest fighting out of desperation, Mora still appeared to win it and thus the fight. He defiantly stood and shouted at Forrest at the final bell, announcing himself the new champion.
Moments later, the judges officially crowned Mora the new WBC Champion by way of majority decision by respectable scores of 115-113, 116-112 and 114-114. Forrest properly congratulated Mora, assuring him that any negative comments coming from him were meant to sell the fight. Mora meanwhile exuded confidence to an almost disturbing degree given how close the fight was, claiming he hadn’t even fought his hardest and his best. If Mora didn’t fight his best against Forrest, then what exactly was he saving his best for?
What was most surprising wasn’t that Mora was able to fight the way he did but that Forrest fought so poorly. Looking winded as early as the second round, Forrest simply wasn’t able to get his punches off, a sign of being too old at age 37 to compete against up and coming fighters like Mora, who needed to win to have any chance at a meaningful career. Though he still intends to fight on, he probably wouldn’t be able to land a lucrative fight for a few years, at which point he may be endangering himself by fighting on.
WILLIAMS DESTROYS QUINTANA TO REGAIN BELT
Paul Williams looked on his way to major fights against the best welterweights in the world after outfighting Antonio Margarito last summer, but a February slipup against Carlos Quintana, which resulted in dropping his WBO belt, had many rethinking the lanky fighter’s abilities. That loss, arguably the most surprising upset of the year to this point, left Williams somewhat of a mystery. No one could say for sure whether Williams’ failure to handle Quintana was the result of underestimating his opponent and under training or simply not being all he was hyped up to be.
Thankfully, Williams answered the question for everybody when he completely annihilated Quintana in one round in the rematch.
Quintana, who spent more than half the first fight consistently beating Williams to the punch, never had a chance to get going the second time around. Less than thirty seconds in, Quintana got tagged with a nasty right uppercut to the nose. If he had been planning on attacking as aggressively as he did in February, Quintana decided against it this night.
After another thirty seconds, Quintana caught Williams with a left hand but ate a counter right hook and straight left from the challenger – something Williams wasn’t able to do in the first meeting. Leading with the jab, Williams drilled Quintana with a hard straight left to the side of the head that hurt the champion and had him holding on.
Williams continued the punishment, however, landing a right hook and a straight left across the face as Quintana stumbled backwards into the ropes. Williams beat right-left after right-left into the hurting Quintana’s head, finally landing a straight left that sent the champion collapsing on his side against the ropes and onto the canvas.
Quintana tried to rise but fell sideways on the first effort. Still, the champion bravely got back to his feet by the count of four and staggered away on unsteady legs. Another hard left hand to the jaw from Williams knocked Quintana sideways into the ropes, the Puerto Rican nearly falling through them. Williams proceeded to beat Quintana all the way across the ring, connecting with another hard left as the champion sank against the ropes. Referee Eddie Claudio was already coming in to stop the massacre as Williams threw down another left, and Quintana fell to his knees, grabbing Williams around the ankles to tackle the challenger to the canvas as he landed on his own face. Both fighters returned to their feet, but Quintana did so only with much assistance, having lost his title in less than a round.
Williams proved he is still the real deal, destroying Quintana much faster than Miguel Cotto was able to do back in 2006. He hurt and then finished a fighter considered one of the more polished boxers in the sport despite not catching him in the first twelve rounds they fought. It was the perfect statement for a guy who may benefit from the February lapse in the long run. Now that he has tasted defeat and reversed the verdict, Williams may be better than ever before.
With the recent news of Floyd Mayweather retiring again, Williams now finds himself as the most sensible fight for the winner of the battle between Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito in July. Having already beaten Margarito at his own game, Williams would be the best remaining welterweight in the world should Cotto lose. If Cotto wins, a bout with Williams would be terrific for the sport but could be problematic for the undefeated Puerto Rican.
