Miguel Berchelt vs. Cristian Mijares on 2/10 in Cancun, MX

By Boxing News - 12/28/2017 - Comments

Image: Miguel Berchelt vs. Cristian Mijares on 2/10 in Cancun, MX

By Dan Ambrose: WBC super featherweight champion Miguel Berchelt (32-1, 28 KOs) will put his WBC title on the line against Mexican former world champion Cristian Mijares (58-8-2, 26 KOs) on February 10 at a still to be determined venue in Cancun, Mexico.

Berchelt was going to face former 2 division world champion Orlando Salido. However, Berchelt suffered an injury, so Salido faced Miguel ‘Mickey’ Roman instead, and he was stopped by him in the 9th round in their fight in December. With Salido out of the picture, Berchelt will make a voluntary defense against the 36-year-old Mijares, and then after that, he’ll face Roman.

Mijares was a top guy years ago, but he’s not done a whole lost since losing to Leo Santa Cruz in 2014. Mijares does have a nice 9-fight winning streak going for him, but those wins have come against less than the best. Mijares can’t be thrown into the ring with guys like Gervonta Davis, Salido, Miguel Roman and Vasyl Lomachenko and be expected to win those fights. He’s not that type of talent.

Mijares has won all 3 of his fights since he move the move to the 130 lb. weight class, but he clearly would be better off if he were fighting at super flyweight or bantamweight. He’s not a big enough puncher for him to compete against the top guys in the super featherweight division. That problem will be exposed when he faces Berchelt on February 10. Mijares fought well at super flyweight from 2003 to 2011, winning the IBF, WBA and WBC 115 lb. titles in that weight class during those years.

Mijares moved up in weight to the super bantamweight division in 2011, and he mostly did well in that division apart from losing to Leo Santa Cruz and Victor Terrazas. Mijares lost to Santa Cruz in March 2014. Mijares backed off from the top guys after the loss to Santa Cruz. Mijares moved up to featherweight after his loss to Santa Cruz. Mijares has done well at 126 and 130, but he hasn’t fought the best until now. We’re going to see how well Mijares holds up against Berchelt. It’s a big step up in class for an aging fighter.

Berchelt, 26, looked really good in beating Takashi Miura and Francisco Vargas in his last 2 fights. When Berchelt faced Vargas, he wasn’t expected to dominate him the way he did. There were a lot of the boxing fans and writers who believed that Vargas was going to beat Berchelt, as he was kind of an unknown going into hat fight because he hasn’t fought ay of the talented guys at 130 during his 7-year pro career.