Ivan Calderon vs. Hugo Fidel Cazares This Saturday

By Manuel Perez: Undefeated World Boxing Organization light flyweight Ivan Calderon (31-0, 6 KOs) fights a rematch with former WBO light flyweight champion Hugo Fidel Cazares (26-4-1, 19 KOs) in a scheduled 12-round bout on Saturday night at the Ruben Rodriguez Coliseum, in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. The two have unfinished business after the 33 year-old Calderon won a controversial 12-round split decision over Cazares last August in Puerto Rico, despite Cazares knocking Calderon down in the 8th round and appearing to win the last six rounds of the fight. The final judges’ scores were a mixed bunch, with one judge ruling it a 116-111 victory for Cazares and the other two giving Calderon the nod by the scores of 115-112 and 115-112, each.

I personally had Cazares, 30 winning by a narrow margin over Calderon. I thought Calderon did a good job in the first six rounds, moving around the ring like a Gazelle, stopping occasionally to land a quick counter-punch, and then continuing with his constant movement. He looked good in those rounds, and made the bigger Cazares miss often with his big shots.

However, it was clear even then that Calderon wouldn’t be able to keep up the pace of his constant movement because eventually he would run out of gas and would have to stand and trade punches with the bigger 5’5″ Cazares, who had a five inch height advantage over Calderon. Sure enough, by the 7th round Calderon had slowed down dramatically, and could no longer run fast enough to avoid the heavy pressure that Cazares was putting on him.

More and more, Cazares began to land big shots with both hands, catching Calderon cleanly with blistering punches to the head. Calderon, for his part, began to slow down with his own pot shots, and seemed more concerned with not getting hit by Cazares rather than focusing on his own offense. In that respect, Calderon was a failure, because Cazares had little problem landing his shots at this juncture of the fight. Sure, he was missing many of them due to Calderon’s movement, but more than enough were filtering through and landing with big power.

In the 8th round, Cazares hurt Calderon badly with a big right hand, causing Calderon to grab Cazares around the waist to prevent from falling to the canvas. However, he slipped down to the canvas anyway, and the referee ruled it as a knockdown because Calderon has obviously grabbed him to prevent from falling. For the remainder of the round, which had little time left at this point, Cazares punished the badly hurt Calderon at will. In the remaining rounds, nine through twelve, Cazares continued with his punishment of the tired Calderon, hitting him with big shots whenever he could catch up to him.

Calderon began fighting more effectively in the 11th round, but it still appeared that Cazares had done enough to win the round because of the much bigger shots that he landed. In the 12th round, it was all Cazares as he landed tremendous shots at the fleeing Calderon. It should have been a round in which Calderon, knowing that the fight was up for grabs, fought hard, but instead he mostly ran around the ring trying to run out the clock. Because of these last six rounds, I gave Cazares the fight by a narrow margin.

This time out, I expect Cazares to get the win on the scorecards. Calderon is a year older at 33, and appears to be slowing down as a fighter. Cazares has too much size and power, and will likely catch up to Calderon at some point and knock him down once or twice. I doubt that he will stop him, for Calderon has an excellent chin, but I think he’ll do more than enough to get the win this time. There’s no way the judges can give Calderon two consecutive gift decisions, even if the fight is being held in his native Puerto Rico.

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