Ismael Barroso: I will win

By Boxing News - 05/05/2016 - Comments

barroso44By Scott Gilfoid: WBA lightweight champion Anthony Crolla (30-4-3, 12 KOs) and the talented unbeaten challenger Ismael Barroso (19-0-2, 18 KOs) met for their final press conference today for their fight this Saturday night at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, UK.

Barroso made it clear during the press conference that he’s tired of all this back and forth talking, and just wants to go out there and do the job on the 29-year-old Crolla and go home with his WBA title.

The Venezuelan born Barroso believes he’s the best fighter in the lightweight division and he’s ready to erase Crolla as the WBA champion as he would any other contender or champion in division.

“I think you are talking too much for the time you will spend in the ring. This is going to be a war and I will win. When I knocked Mitchell out I was just getting warmed up. I’m the best Lightweight in the world!” said Barroso via Fightnews.com.

Barroso is going to be a very difficult opponent for the feather-fisted Crolla to deal with because he doesn’t have any way of keeping Barroso off him. Crolla’s typical tricks to win his past fights, using a lot of feints and movement, won’t do much to keep Barroso off him because he doesn’t react to feints.

Barrroso just attacks and if he gets hit, he gets hit. The thing is he’s going to be throwing nonstop punches, and Crolla is going to look kind of silly using feints while getting nailed with repeated blows to the head and body. Feints only work for fighters that stay on the outside and throw single shots or one-two combinations like Crolla’s last opponent Darleys Perez. Against a nonstop puncher like Barroso, you have to throw the feints out the window and actually fight instead of relying trickery to keep your opponent guessing when you’ll throw a punch. If Crolla wants to use feints while getting nailed 100 times per round, then more power to him. I think it would be stupid, but oh well.

“When Barroso put on that performance against Kevin (Mitchell), people thought I wouldn’t take the fight – which got my back up,” said Crolla. “I will do whatever it takes on Saturday night to win the fight. When I do win, I will stake my claim that I’m the very best lightweight in the world!”

I’ve noticed that Crolla has been patting himself on the back constantly by mentioning how he chose to take the fight with Barroso. I don’t know why Crolla is going this. It’s not as if he had any choice. Crolla beat the only paper champion in the lightweight division to win the WBA title last November against Perez. It’s not as if Crolla could vacate the WBA title in order to go after one of the other lightweight champions to win a belt.

If Crolla gave up the WBA title without a fight to avoid Barroso, things wouldn’t get easier by going after one of the other champions in Jorge Linares, Terry Flanagan or Rances Barthelemy. There’s no way Crolla would beat any of those guys. At least by fighting Barroso, Crolla will get a nice payday for his efforts in the process of likely losing his title by knockout.

The way I see it, Crolla’s only chance of winning against Barroso is if a referee takes over the fight in the later rounds like we saw in Crolla’s first fight against Darleys Perez last July and starts taking off points left and right to get Crolla back into the fight. The referee working the first fight between Crolla and Perez took two points off from Perez in the last two rounds for low blows, and this enabled Crolla to get a draw.

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In the second point deduction, Crolla pulled Perez’s head down while he was throwing the a punch and the referee immediately took a point away from Perez. The point deductions came back to back on successive punches. I’d never seen a referee do that before. In this case, I don’t think two point deductions from Barroso will save Crolla from being knocked out. I don’t think it matters. Barroso is going to be coming to knock Crolla’s head off, and he’s not going to let it go to the cards. As such, point deductions won’t mean much for this fight because I don’t see it going to the cards.

Barroso knocked out Kevin Mitchell in the 5th round last December at the O2 Arena in London, UK. Barroso put steady pressure on Mitchell in that fight until he wilted by the 5th. Mitchell couldn’t handle the pressure Barroso put on him or the power in his shots.

“He’s up there as the hardest punchers,” said Mitchell to skysports.com about Barroso. “I don’t think he’s going to be doing it to Crolla, though. Just because Barroso did that to me, doesn’t mean he’s going to do it to Crolla. You have to change your game, and if Crolla can change his game then he proves himself a worthy world champion. If he can’t, then he’ll get himself knocked out,” said Mitchell.

Mitchell wants Crolla to use movement and throw combinations to keep Barroso off him. In other words, it sounds like Mitchell wants Crolla to run from Barroso. I could have predicted that. There’s no way Crolla won’t urn in this fight because he can’t use his normal fighting style because Barroso doesn’t pay attention to feints and that’s what Crolla likes to do a lot. He likes to stay on the outside and keep his opponents guessing when he’s going to throw a jab or power shots. He tries to trick them, and if they’re stupid, they’ll fall for the tricks.

The guys that have found success against Crolla are fighters like Derry Mathews, who jumped on Crolla and pounded the living daylights out of him with power shots. I thought Mathews was royally robbed of a decision victory in his rematch with Crolla in 2013. The fight was scored a draw, but I had Mathews winning by eight rounds. I also saw Gavin Rees get robbed of a win in his fight with Crolla in 2013. I had Rees winning that fight by four rounds. The fact that Crolla was given a victory was baffling because Rees outworked him, out-landed him and landed the harder shots throughout the fight.