Much has already been written regarding a potential December to remember David versus Goliath encounter between Manny Pacquiao and Oscar De La Hoya. Next Saturday night in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, with little herald, boxing will have a highly competitive and intriguing bout between men with a significant discrepancy in size.
WBO junior flyweight titlist Ivan Calderon (31-0, 6 KOs) will rematch Mexican Hugo Cazares (24-6-1, 19 KOs) a year and five days after their first contest, a bout the Puerto Rican won via split decision. Calderon harnessed his tremendous boxing skills and survived an eighth round knockdown en route to the victory. In a year filled with the magic of Israel Vazquez vs. Rafael Marquez I & II, the boxing drama of Calderon vs. Cazares flew under the radar of most fight fans during 2007.
These men are junior flyweights, tiny gladiators, but how much of a size discrepancy is there between Cazares and Calderon?
You would be surprised.
During his four years as WBO minimumweight champion (105 pound limit), Calderon was considered small for even the smallest of boxing’s weight classes and in eleven title defenses El Ni?o De Hierro (Iron Boy) came under the weight limit on five occasions. Of his six knockouts ? Calderon sports an anemic knockout rate of 19% – only two of them came against championship opponents.
Calderon, a representative of Puerto Rico during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, has always dazzled boxing purists with his superior speed of hands and feet, which allow him to strike but not get struck. Based on just these skills, many boxing pundits consider Ivan a top ten entry in boxing’s mythical pound for pound rankings.
Cazares, though a former junior flyweight champion, has weighed in as high as 115 pounds for a professional contest and his last outing during January the native of Los Mochis ? home of fellow high level Mexican fighters Fernando Montiel, Jorge Arce, and Humbert Soto ? competed at 112 pounds.
Cazares has the power to neutralize any opponent; over a 31 fight career El Increible has knocked out 61 percent of his opponents. Though Calderon dominated the early rounds of their first fight with his tremendous boxing skills set, Cazares started to hunt down the Puerto Rican during the second half of the fight and won many rounds on power punching and scored an eighth round knockdown.
Boxing styles aside, Cazares enjoys five inch height and three inch reach advantages. To further illustrate the difference in size, during a pre-fight weighing this past week Calderon scaled in at 109.7 pounds (1.7 pounds above the junior fly limit of 108) and Cazares was recorded at 118 pounds.
Calderon threaded the needle the first time around and escaped with a split on the scorecards, can he do it again against a stronger opponent who has already been in the ring with him for 12 championship rounds and adjusted to his speed during the second half of the contest?
Cazares vs. Calderon II ? the sort of David and Goliath story that interests me.
The bout will take place on Saturday, August 30th and distributed on pay-per-view.
