By William Mackay: Former Amir Khan conqueror Breidis Prescott (25-4, 20 KO’s) will be in a make or break fight net Saturday night against 34-year-old Francisco Figueroa (20-4-1, 13 KO’s) in a scheduled eight round fight at the Doubletree Miamimart Hotel, in Miami, Florida.
The hard hitting 29-year-old Prescott has had pretty rotten luck in the ring in the past year, losing by a controversial 12 round unanimous decision against Paul McCloskey in Belfast, Northern Ireland last year in September and then following that defeat by losing a 10 round knockout to unbeaten light welterweight contender Mike Alvarado last November in s fight that Prescott was winning going into the last round.
Prescott, 5’11”, moved up in weight from lightweight to light welterweight, and he’s not quite as dangerous as he once was at this relatively new weight. He can still really punch, as we saw in the damage that he did to McCloskey and Alvarado’s faces in those two fights, but he’s not knocking guys out like he once was. At the same time Prescott’s conditioning or lack thereof has been exposed in those two fights after he ran out of gas in both of them.
This is something that Prescott will have to learn to accept and deal with, because it doesn’t look like he’s going to be able to change that as he gets older. What Prescott needs to do is learn to move better and pace himself better. In his loss to Alvarado, Prescott made the mistake of continually initiating clinches with Alvarado, and this made it possible for Alvarado to land huge uppercuts to the chin of Prescott. He should have figured out that it was bad idea to clinch Alvarado after he got hit with the first few big uppercuts, but Prescott continued to clinch until he was eventually badly hurt by Alvarado and taken out.
Figueroa has lost two out of his last three fights, and he’s vulnerable at this point in his career. He blasted out by Randall Bailey three years ago in a fourth round TKO defeat. He didn’t fight at all in 2010 and 2011. He came back last March and was beaten by Alex Perez by a 10 round unanimous decision.
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