Hola familia y amigos, welcome to a carne al pastor and tacos de lengua flavored edition of Central America’s number one source for semi-satirical boxing commentary, Hawaiian skin on skin street justice and astrophysical journal reviews, The Sunday Brunch – We’re writing for your website, misspelling words and contextually butchering the English language. This week we’re taking a quick peek at the Leo Santa Claus – Abner Mares clash and if there’s time we’ll talk Fear The Walking Dead. Find those 47-1 T-shirts I told you to sell on Ebay and let me have one, we’re about to sort through this nonsense. With that being said, I gave you your instructions in the dressing room; what I say you must obey. Cuidate, eschua mi y toca los manos…Let’s get it on!
Ahead of the Leo Santa Cruz – Abner Mares clash I contended that Mares’ best hope for victory would lie in classical boxing techniques. It’s well known that Santa Cruz’s defense is his offense – he’s an extremely high-output puncher who forces his opponents into close quarters combat. When certain fighters are presented with such a style, their plan of action goes right out the window and a more primal instinct takes over.
Such was the case on Saturday night when Abner Mares’ corner pleaded with him to stop slugging in the center of the ring early on in the fight (inexplicably changing their collective minds a few rounds later and calling for more brawling). Mares, in my estimation, possesses the better hand speed and overall boxing ability. For him to give up those advantages and fight Santa Cruz’s game seemed counter-intuitive – Don’t hook with a hooker and don’t box with a boxer.
While the brawl was a very fun, fan-friendly event, it was a sloppy, messy affair. According to Compubox statistics, Leo Santa Cruz threw 1,057 punches over 12 rounds of action, while Mares launched 980 salvos of his own. However, the problem I have lies in the rest of the numerical information.
Abner Mares could have won this fight rather easily, in my opinion. On paper, his resume is deeper, his hands are faster, legs quicker and his defense is better. Leo Santa Cruz has a similar style to Antonio Margarito, which some of you will remember was equally as devastating at times (Plastergate will be discussed at a further point in the future), however, his strengths, like Margarito, are his volume punching and his ability to effectively block punches with his face.
Throughout the 12 round battle, Abner Mares attempted less than 200 jabs and landed a paltry total of seven, or ten times less than Santa Cruz. It’s confounding that someone with better boxing ability would chose to forgo that talent and sloppily trade punches with a fighter who’s better suited for that very task.
At least this didn’t degenerate to a ball-crunching, penis-pulverizing circus like Mares-Agbeko 1 (how the fuck didn’t you see that shit, Russell Mora?).
Oh, and more referee cams, please.
Think this column is too short this week? Tell us how much we suck in the comments below, best insult gets a free meal voucher for Pondarosa, home of the Big Fat Yeast Roll.
Thanks for joining us, we’ll be back next week with more run-on sentences, dangling participles and randomly configured catchphrases. We will be reviewing the 1980s die-cast Transformers and if there is time we will have them fight the Thundercats and He-Man will act as the third man in the ring. Send all pictures of Carl Froch’s wife to JESSEBOXINGTRIBUNE@GMAIL.COM or stalk our Twitter feed @JESSEBOXING. Until next time, sante.
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