5 of the best Mexican boxing showdowns
Here are five fights starring Mexican fighters you absolutely need to see
The country of Mexico and the sport of boxing have always been synonymous. The art of pugilism is one of the country’s most popular sports and arguably provides boxing with its largest fanbase. Starting in the early 1930s, when Jose Perez Flores, aka Battling Shaw, became Mexico’s first boxing champion, a plethora of great fighters emerged from the country.
Mexico has produced over 100 world champions throughout its boxing history, including numerous inducted into the International Boxing Hall-of-Fame. Currently, Mexico has nine titleholders, including Julio Cesar Martinez, Emanuel Navarrete, Rey Vargas, Luis Alberto Lopez, Rafael Espinoza, Juan Francisco Estrada, and most recently Isaac Cruz and Gilberto Ramirez.
The most well-known active fighter out of Mexico is the current undisputed super middleweight champion, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. The four-division champion is set to defend his titles against fellow countryman Jaime Munguia this upcoming May 4 on PPV. The fight isn’t exactly what boxing fans were clamoring for; however, it should prove at the least to follow in the tradition of being an action-filled fight between two Mexican stars.
“This fight is a great source of pride for me, because it’s all about Mexico,” Alvarez said in a recent press release. “I’m proud to have my country featured this way in front of the whole world. The fans are going to be the biggest winners on May 4, and we invite everyone to what’s going to be a big party for Mexico.”
The fighting style that Mexico is best known for can best be described as relentless aggression, based on taking on punishment and giving it right back to your opponent. However, fighters out of Mexico have exhibited a variety of fighting methods.
Julio Cesar Chavez is often thought of as the quintessential Mexican fighter. His high-pressure style and how he assaulted the body of his opposition is the template for most fighters out of the country. Looking back at his fights, you’ll also see a fighter who used head and body movement and caught most of his opponent’s blows on the gloves.
Besides Chavez, Mexico has also produced some of the most technically sound boxers in history. Fighters such as Gilbert Roman, Ricardo Lopez, and Juan Manuel Marquez could be found in boxing textbooks for properly executing punches.
While fighters out of Mexico shouldn’t be typecast, bouts between Mexican fighters usually guarantee a night of excitement. Some of boxing’s greatest fights have been between fighters out of Mexico. The passion and commitment exhibited to live up to the expectation to deliver a memorable battle is often a matter of pride to represent Mexico properly.
“It is a great responsibility to represent my country in boxing because there have been great fighters and iconic legends,” Alvarez told the Haute Times in 2017. “I think boxing has contributed enormously to Mexico, and it is a great responsibility that I take with strong commitment and train hard as I contribute to awarding big fights to Mexican boxing history.”
In preparation for Alvarez’s upcoming match with Munguia, Fansided MMA will look back at some of the greatest bouts between Mexican fighters. There have been many outstanding bouts between Mexican and Mexican-American fighters. Fights like Bobby Chacon vs. Rafael Limon IV and Michael Carbajal vs. Humberto Gonzalez stand among the best. But for this list, we’ll focus on matchups strictly between native fighters out of Mexico.
The most prevalent omission here is the trilogy of bouts between Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales. Their three fights, especially their first and third bouts, are the gold standard for fights between Mexican champions. To bring attention to a few fights that are often missed and not talked about enough, their trilogy will be omitted from this list. However, every one of these fights is a must-watch for all boxing fans.
5. Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Marco Antonio Barrera
The quartet of Manny Pacquiao, Erik Morales, Marco Antonio Barrera, and Juan Manuel Marquez defined the featherweight divisions throughout the 2000s. There would be 13 fights between the four, with Morales and Marquez never meeting each other in the ring. Perhaps the most underrated bout by the foursome was between Barrera and Marquez in 2007.
Years of anticipation surrounded Barrera and Marquez before they finally fought. Both out of Mexico City and fighting around the same weight class it seemed like the two were set to face off years before they eventually did. Barrera and Marquez were both mainstays at the Great Western Forum (Kia Forum) in Inglewood, CA, throughout the 1990s, growing a fanbase in the United States.
Of the two, Barrera saw his career explode with appearances on HBO, where he participated in numerous classic fights. Barrera’s fights with Kennedy McKinney and Erik Morales on HBO’s Boxing After Dark propelled him into the PPV market, where he became Mexico’s most popular fighter for a time when he defeated Naseem Hamed in 2001.
Marquez would find himself in relative obscurity for years, with many of his contemporaries avoiding him until he fought Pacquiao to a draw in their first encounter after rising from three knockdowns in the first round in 2004. However, after Pacquiao, Marquez’s career would go into limbo. He would have to rebuild and put himself back into the world title scene after losing his featherweight championship in an upset to Chris John in Indonesia in 2006.
Following the loss to John, Marquez would slightly adjust his style, becoming more willing to exchange on a frequent basis. The change in style resulted in Marquez having two exciting fights in a row, during which he scored stoppages over Jimrex Jaca and Terdsak Jandaeng.
After winning the WBC super featherweight title in the third match with rival Erik Morales, Barrera made a few title defenses, including a pair of fights against Rocky Juarez. After Marquez decided to move up from featherweight to super featherweight, a clash between the two Mexican stars was set.
There was a mountain of pressure on Barrera and Marquez that their fight lived up to expectations. Before the sound of the first bell at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, HBO’s Larry Merchant predicted that this would be a fight that fans would want to see again.
“Is it too early, Jim and Emanuel, to demand a rematch?,” Merchant asked his colleagues Jim Lampley and the late Emanuel Steward on the HBO broadcast.
There are some fights that can be used as a guideline to show the true art of boxing. The battle between Barrera and Marquez fit into that mold. The action was furious, but the tactical battle within the warfare made the bout memorable. The counters to counters were abundant, and each fighter’s adjustments highlighted just how prepared both men were for their clash.
Each round was competitive and closely contested, with the seventh stanza having the most substantial impact on how the fight would ultimately be scored. With each passing round, Marquez began to find a home for his straight right hand, and in the seventh, he landed one that visibly hurt Barrera. Marquez pressed the advantage and looked to be closing in on a knockdown or stopping Barrera. Always dangerous in the final moments of the round, Barrera landed a perfectly placed right hand on Marquez’s chin in an exchange that dropped his foe.
However, in an unfortunate lapse in judgment, Barrera decided to hit Marquez while he was down. The referee, Jay Nady, either chose not to count Barrera’s knockdown or missed the punch, as he only took a point away from the former super bantamweight champion. A two- to three-point swing in such a tightly contested match could have made all the difference on the judges’ scorecards.
They would continue to battle, almost trading rounds through the stretch, and received a standing ovation when the final bell rang at the end of the 12th round.
“Let’s do it again!” Larry Merchant declared at the end of the fight.
While most of the world saw a competitive match, all three judges scored the fight for Marquez with scores of 118–109 and 116–111 twice. Unfortunately, a rematch between the two would never happen. Regardless, Barrera-Marquez joins fights like James Toney-Mike McCallum as the perfect blend of action and technical skill.
4. Carlos Zarate vs. Alfonso Zamora
Boasting an impeccable combined undefeated record of 74 victories with an astonishing 73 knockouts, Mexico City’s Carlos Zarate and Alfonso Zamora guaranteed a knockout when they faced off in 1977.
Both men held bantamweight titles, with Zarate having made three defenses of his WBC title and scoring 21 straight knockouts with an impressive 45–0 record with 44 knockouts. The younger of the two, at 23, Zamora, a 1972 Olympic silver medalist, was a perfect 29–0 with 29 knockouts and made five defenses of his WBA bantamweight title, including a second-round stoppage over future featherweight legend Eusebio Pedroza.
The last few generations of boxing have been maligned for having promoters and networks delay or hinder major fights from taking place. When it comes to the battle of the power-punching Zamora and Zarate, not much was different. The WBC and WBA wouldn’t sanction the fight as a unification match, and the personal bad blood between the fighter’s management teams led to the fight being a non-title bout scheduled for ten rounds.
Despite being a non-title affair, the winner would be recognized as the world’s best bantamweight. Held at the Great Western Forum in Inglewood, CA, the fight did not disappoint. It featured multiple knockdowns, a fan entering the ring in the first round, and two appearances of a police riot squad.
Any notion that the fight being non-title would impact either fighter’s performance was put to rest in the first round. The two knockout artists circled one another, trading power punches and hooks. As is the case with all boxing matches, the bigger puncher is the one who can take his opponent’s punches.
In the third round, the 26-year-old Zarate was able to hurt Zamora with lead right hands, dropping his opponent to the canvas. Zamora never fully recovered. Zarate scored two more knockdowns in the fourth round, and Zamora’s father threw in the towel.
It may have only gone four rounds, but within those twelve minutes, the circumstances inside and outside the ring provided a noteworthy fight between two champions out of Mexico.
3. Erik Morales vs. Daniel Zaragoza
Erik “El Terrible” Morales is undoubtedly one of the greatest action fighters in history. He purposely fought in a manner detrimental to his winning for the crowd’s enjoyment. Morales loved to fight. Even at 21 years old, in his first world title fight against WBC super bantamweight champion Daniel Zaragoza, Morales would often put himself in comprising positions.
At 39 years old, Zaragoza was a four-time world champion, having held a title at bantamweight and a three-time WBC super bantamweight titleholder. He had fought all over the world and always responded to defeats, putting himself back into world title contention. Heading into the bout with Morales, Zaragoza had not suffered a loss since 1993 and only had one draw against Hector Acero Sanchez, whom he would win a split decision over in a rematch.
At the County Coliseum in El Paso, TX, with Floyd Mayweather Jr. on the undercard, Morales took the first step on the path to greatness, starting with Zaragoza. From the onset, Zaragoza let it be known that he wouldn’t lay down for his younger opponent. He was there to defend his title, not to participate in a coronation for the next generation.
Zaragoza played the role of the aggressor in the first half of the fight, landing overhand rights and lefts. Morales was, at times, in control of the fight, using an outstanding jab and countering with his right. However, lapses in focus allowed Zaragoza to land clean punches, and in the fourth round, another overhand right by the veteran stunned his younger opponent.
Morales began to take a firmer position in the sixth round, pushing Zaragoza back to the ropes with barrages of punches. However, the champion showed his resolve by responding with a combination to the body that visibly hurt Morales.
It was in the eighth round that the fight truly turned completely in Morales’ favor. Landing more consistently counter right hands and uppercuts, Morales took control of the fight. Zaragoza looked vulnerable and, in the 10th round, was dropped with a body shot. A similar straight right hand to the body in the 11th sent Zaragoza down for good as he acquiesced his world title to the emerging Morales.
“This really isn’t the sad death of a king,” Larry Merchant said on HBO. “But the passing of the torch to the next generation.”
Zaragoza didn’t just hand his world title over to Morales; he forced the then-young and up-and-coming fighter to take it from him. In the history of battles between Mexican fighters, this is an example of a posing of the torch done correctly.
2. Francisco Vargas vs. Orlando Salido
On the day after Muhammad Ali’s death, the fight between Orlando Salido and Francisco Vargas was cathartic, helping the boxing world heal. Vargas, the then WBC Super Featherweight champion, emerged as one of Mexico’s most exciting fighters, stopping Takashi Miura in the 2015 fight of the year.
Salido, a former featherweight and super featherweight titleholder, was thought to have seen his best days pass. After a pair of victories in excellent fights with Puerto Rico’s Juan Manuel Lopez, he was largely dominated by Mikey Garcia, who dropped him three times before the fight was stopped due to an accidental headbutt after eight rounds.
He then went through several inconsistent performances where he won a controversial decision over Vasiliy Lomachenko. In two fights with Roman Martinez, he lost a decision and earned a draw. Many believed that the wars Salido had been part of had finally taken their toll.
But, realizing this could be his final world title opportunity, Salido rose to the occasion. The battle between Salido and Vargas took place at the StubHub Center (Dignity Health Sports Park) in Carson, CA, an arena known for its tendency to hold action-packed fights. In that tradition, Vargas and Salido lived up to expectations, delivering one of the best fights in the arena’s history.
It can be hyperbole to state that fighters trade rounds, but in the case of Vargas and Salido, whenever one fighter looked to have the advantage, the other immediately retaliated. The ebbs and flows within rounds featured Salido’s ability to throw combinations with hooks while Vargas landed straight punches in between exchanges.
Often overlooked in these types of fights, which are a war of attrition, is the skill on display. There were moments when Saildo would counter Vargas while on the ropes or when Vargas timed Salido with uppercuts when he was attacked to the body. The in-fighting exhibited by the two was reminiscent of the classic fight between Jose Luis Castillo and Diego Corrales a decade earlier.
The effort both fighters left in the ring left little difference between them. In one of the few fights in which you won’t hear any complaints about the judges’ scorecards, Vargas-Salido scored a draw. And deservedly so. Neither fighter’s performance justified a loss on their record. The judges scored the match a majority draw, with one score for Vargas at 115–113 and 114–114 twice.
Vargas-Salido was the unanimous fight of the year for 2016, winning by numerous publications, including Ring Magazine and ESPN.
1. Israel Vasquez vs. Rafael Marquez 2
It’s rare for a decade to be defined by more than one rivalry. In the 2000s, the bouts between Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales were not just the best of Mexico but the sport in general. However, they weren’t perfect. Their first two fights were controversial, with most seeing the wrong man have his hands raised. The fights took place years apart and in different weight classes.
One rivalry that occurred in the same decade and was arguably on the same level was between Israel Vasquez and Rafael Marquez. Three of the four fights in their rivalry took place within the span of a year from March 2007 to March 2008, all within the same weight class and for the WBC super bantamweight title. The third match in the Vasquez-Marquez rivalry has garnered the vast majority of praise and is their only meeting that went the distance. Due to the amount of attention paid to the third fight, their second fight should be more recognized.
The rematch took place in August 2007 and served as redemption for Vasquez. In the first match with Marquez, Vasquez was able to drop his rival with a left hook. However, Marquez, like his brother Juan Manuel Marquez, was a technical marvel who threw beautiful combinations but with more power. He landed combinations that caused Vasquez to break his nose. Unable to breathe properly, Vasquez reluctantly elected to stop the fight after seven rounds.
Vasquez received criticism for seemingly committing one of the sport’s most significant sins: choosing to swallow his pride instead of his blood to live to fight another day. With a chip on his shoulder, Vasquez aimed to conquer Marquez, who entered the ring as one of the world’s pound-for-pound best.
Before moving up to super bantamweight to meet Vasquez, Marquez was a former bantamweight champion and held victories over Mark Johnson, Tim Austin, Mauricio Pastrana, and Silence Mabuza. At the time of his fights with Vasquez, between him and his brother Juan Manuel, he was considered the better fighter.
Unlike Barrera and Morales, there was no personal animosity between Vasquez and Marquez. However, you wouldn’t know that by the way they fought each other. Starting where they left off in their first bout, Vasquez and Marquez built up momentum by trading blows. The third round set a tone that the rest of the fight followed and would win the Ring Magazine Round of the Year.
Marquez was the more precise puncher of the two and caused cuts over both of Vasquez’s eyes. It was thought that Marquez was the bigger puncher between the two, but it was Vasquez who was scoring the knockdowns. In the sixth round, with a left hook on the inside, Vasquez floored Marquez hard. Unable to recover enough to halt Vasquez’s oncoming onslaught, the referee stopped the fight giving Marquez his first loss in almost seven years.
Vasquez celebrated with a mask of blood covering his eyes in a dramatic scene as he was vindicated in quelling those who doubted his warrior spirit.
Originally published at FansidedMMA on April 03, 2023
