By Scott Gilfoid: WBA lightweight champion Anthony Crolla (30-4-3, 12 KOs) faces what is pretty much an unbelievable task in defending his title against the unbeaten machine-like Ismael Barroso (19-0-1, 18 KOs) on May 7 at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, UK. Crolla, 29, says he never considered giving up his WBA title in order to avoid the fight with the powerful Barroso.
Many boxing fans and experts felt that the smart move for Crolla would have been for him to give up his WBA title and bow to the talent of the more superior fighter in Barroso, but Crolla has stubbornly decided to go down with the ship potentially. He may live to regret it.
Crolla was extremely fortunate to win the WBA title in his last fight against Darleys Perez.
Crolla scored a 5th round knockout last November. Perez made a blunder by backing up against the ropes in the 5th and this allowed Crolla to connect with a left to the body to get the stoppage. If Perez had the sense enough to stay in the center of the ring, then he would have had a great chance of winning the fight unless we had another fight that is decided upon by the referee calling low blow after low blow fouls. That’s essentially what happened in the first Perez-Crolla fight, and it saved Crolla from losing the fight.
It was pretty controversial to say the least. The referee docked Perez, the visiting fighter, points in the 11th and 12th rounds of the fight. Those two deductions saved Crolla from losing, as the fight was then scored a draw by the judges. On the second point deduction, Crolla pulled Perez’s head down while he was throwing a punch. Incredibly, the referee still took a point away from Perez. You could see what he was up against with the way the fight was controlled.
“When you work for something so hard and so long, the last thing you want to do is give it up,” said Crolla. “I’d be a fraud if I’d done that when my mandatory is in front of me. It’s the most dangerous fight of my career. “The suggestion that I would duck him got my back up a bit. We know he can bang and that is why everyone avoids him, but I believe I have got the tools to beat him and he’s not taking my belt.”
Well, it sounds nice everything Crolla is saying, but this is reality here. This isn’t some kind of vision thing that Crolla is going to be living when he gets inside the ring on May 7. I’m sure he would love to keep his WBA lightweight title, but the fact of the matter is, Crolla is facing a better fighter than himself with more punching power and talent. The biggest problem that Crolla has is he doesn’t have anything to keep Barroso off of him.
Nothing. Barroso is a wrecking machine and there’s no stopping him. When he gets inside the ring on fight night, he’s going to have one single purpose and that’s to wipe Crolla out in short order just the way he did with Kevin Mitchell last December. We saw how Barroso made easy work of Mitchell in stopping him in just five rounds.
I rate Mitchell as a better fighter than Crolla by far. It’s too bad the two of them never fought each other because I think Mitchell would have blasted Crolla into oblivion, and no referee would have been able to play a factor in a fight between them. Heck, a referee could take points off twice from Mitchell for low blows, and he’d still likely stop Crolla with ease.
The way I see it, Crolla has got only one choice if he wants to survive against Barroso. He’s got to slug with him. If he tries to run and hold, he’s going to get blown out in short order because Barros is too quick on his feet and he will not have any problems catching up to Crolla and finishing him off quickly.
Yeah, I know that Crolla probably won’t last long if he stops and has a dog fight with Barroso, but that’s pretty much the only chance he has. If he runs, he’ll get chased down and smashed. If he stands and fights, then he can at least go out in a blaze of glory. Who knows? Maybe Crolla might get lucky and land a body shot to get a stoppage. I know that’s the plan that him and his trainer likely have. They’re going to try and go to Barroso’s body hoping that they’ll score a body shot stoppage like they did in their last fight against Perez.
“Ismael is without doubt the most dangerous man in the 135-pound division, but Anthony is not scared of anyone, and he believes that he’s got the goods to beat him and go on to unify the division,” said Hearn.