(Photo: Esther Lin/SHOWTIME) By Jason Kim: WBC super bantamweight champion Abner Mares (24-0-1, 13 KO’s) will be making his first defense of his title this Saturday night against 27-year-old Panamanian Anselmo Moreno (33-1-1, 12 KO’s) in a toss up fight on Showtime at the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Mares said “If you miss, you cannot become frustrated. You have to keep working and that is one of the biggest keys for me.”

Mares, 26, is going to have to figure out a way to solve the Moreno puzzle because this guy is very hard to hit and he does really well against fighters that try to crowd him the way that Mares will likely be doing. Mares’ entire offensive game is based on his inside fighting ability. He’s been lucky that he’s faced a lot of guys that have accommodated his style by letting him fight that way against him by standing and trading.

However, Mares is going to have to alter his game on Saturday night to deal with the movement and odd punching angles that Moreno likes to use. Moreno has really long arms and he’s very good at using them to land shots while moving around. He doesn’t normally get hit a lot because he keeps the action on the outside. But Moreno is so well schooled that even when he’s fighting on the inside he still continues to dominate.

Whether he can do that against a skilled fighter like Mares remains to be seen. But if Moreno does struggle in close he’s able to adapt quickly to change the fight to a distance that suits him better.

Moreno is the WBA Super World bantamweight champion and he’s arguably the best fighter at that weight. He’s got no one really to challenge him down there, hence he’s moving up in weight for this fight to take on Mares. Moreno has a recent win over Vic Darchinyan, Lorenzo Parra and Nehomar Cermeno. He did have problems with the wild style that Cermeno fought in. That guy gave Moreno a lot of problems with his aggressive style. But Mares isn’t as wilde open as Cermeno, so it’s doubtful that he’ll be able to have the same kind of success against Moreno.