Abner Mares faces Daniel Ponce De Leon this Saturday at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas

By Boxing News - 04/29/2013 - Comments

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By Allan Fox: WBC featherweight champion Daniel Ponce De Leon (44-4, 35 KO’s) will be making his first defense of his tile this Saturday night against former two division world champion Abner Mares (25-0-1, 13 KO’s) in a Showtime/CBS pay-per-view bout at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This fight is going to be a real test for both fighters because each of them has a lot to prove. De Leon, 32, needs to prove that he can beat the elite fighters in the sport because he’s failed in the past in defeats against Juan Manuel Lopez, Adrien Broner and Yuriorkis Gamboa.

De Leon has won his last three fights since suffering back to back defeats against Gamboa and Broner. He’s beaten Omar Estrella, Eduardo Lazcano and Jhonny Gonzalez. This Saturday’s fight is going to be a tough one for De Leon because Mares is a lot better than the last three opponents he’s faced and he’s going to have to raise his game in a big way if he wants to win.

De Leon has an advantage in that he’s been fighting at featherweight for the past five years, and he’s used to getting hit by the harder punchers in this weight class. But De Leon, 5’5”, won’t have much of a size advantage over the 5’4 ½” Mares, so it really doesn’t mean much that he’s been fighting at a higher weight than him.

This fight is going to come down to whether or not De Leon can dominate Mares with his power. He’s clearly the harder puncher of the two, but he’s not going to be able to out-box Mares because he’s not in Mares’ class in terms of boxing skills.

De Leon is going to have to chop Mares down if he wants to win this fight, and one way for him to do this is to get in the trenches and look to take him out in a war. Mares likes to fight in that manner, so it’s not as if De Leon will have to chase him all around the ring.

Here’s the rest of the undercard:

J’Leon Love vs. Gabriel Rosado
Leo Santa Cruz vs. Alexander Munoz
Badou Jack vs. Michael Gbenga
Luis Arias vs. DonYil Livingston
Ronald Gavril vs. Roberto Yong
Lanell Bellows vs. Matt Garretson



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