Mexican Style of Boxing? It Doesn't Work vs Prime Manny
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 18 May 2021
Pacquiao (R) and Morales fought three times.
The month of May indeed seems to be Mexico's special or charm time period.
Recently, Miss Universe Mexico Andrea Meza ended a long Mexican and Latina drought of success in arguably the most important and prestigious annual beauty and talent competition in the globe by bagging the Miss Universe 2021 crown.
And the past two weekends starting with the celebrated Cinco de Mayo festival, Mexican pro boxers led by multi division and titled champion as well as undisputed world's best pound for pound fighter Canelo Alvarez got to showcase so called Mexican style of boxing in high profile and avidly followed world boxing matches no less.
Undoubtedly, Mexican style is very fan friendly and entertaining but some purist would dismiss it as bereft of science and technique. Case in point was the recent Brandon Figueroa-Luis Nery fight. It was an all action, non stop punching and slugging fight, alright, but I was particularly reminded of that famous saying of the late great Flash Elorde: "Huwag namang bara bara bay."
Just what is the so called Mexican Style?
Some years back, at the height of Gennady Golovkin's popularity and seeming invincibility, he and his fans would describe fighting Mexican style as "a style in which a fighter is gutsy, comes forward aggressively, is throwing power punches just to throw them and engages in unnecessary exchanges".
Golovkin, as a few others who became noted and highly successful fighters and world champions as the Kameda brothers of Japan, prided themselves as fighting like Mexicans or with the Mexican style as they knew or appreciated it.
But eventual GGG conqueror, Canelo Alvarez argued that GGG's definition of Mexican style is not completely correct.
Alvarez said, "If you look at all the great Mexican fighters who have become world renowned world champions as Salvador "Chava" Sanchez, Erik "El Terible" Morales, Juan Manuel "El Dinamita" Marquez and Ricardo "El Finito" Lopez just to name a few, they were not the biggest brawlers-- they were intelligent with their boxing, were able to outclass their opponents and knew how to use their bodies to achieve their victories."
Canelo continued: "I would argue that a Mexican Warrior is one that has heart, passion, and fights with all that he has until the very end with intuition and intelligence. A Mexican warrior will not die in the line of fire, but will cunningly be three steps ahead. No one cam teach you to be a warrior. It is something innate that unites all Mexicans--that fire is what propels us to survive and thrive."
Strange but Canelo failed to mention Julio Cesar Chavez who is generally considered as the ultimate personification of the Mexican style earlier made popular by such fighters as Ruben Olivares and Carlos Zarate.
Indeed, it is hard to stereotype Mexican style as it is hard to actually and accurately pin it down in description. For one, Canelo himself does not fully fit the bill talking of the common description. Definitely, he is no come forward, seemingly mindless slugger.
But what is common in the various attempts at describing it are words such as gutsy, aggressive, pressure, determination to win.
Does the style prove effective, all the time or most of the time?
It depends on who is the opponent. Certainly it does not work as we have seen with the special likes of Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns and Marvelous Marvin Hagler.
In our case, we can look at how noted Mexicans obviously with the Mexican style as described above, fared against boxers such as our very own Manny Pacquiao who for most of his prime has become known as a "Mexicutioner".
In his career to date, Manny has faced about fourteen Mexican and Mexican American fighters but only two namely Erik Morales and Juan Manuel Marquez managed to beat him but just once in a series of fights.
Morales did it in their first meeting in 2005 winning by hard earned decision in Manny's debut at super featherweight. But Manny stopped him in their succeeding two fights, the rubber match earlier than the rematch.
Marquez did it in their fourth and final confrontation in 2012, managing to knock out Manny with what is generally considered as a lucky or Hail Mary shot as Pacquiao had him bloodied and beaten up from the fourth round until he landed that desperation punch near the end of the sixth. In their three earlier fights, Marquez had to survive trips to the canvas and scary moments to eke out a draw and two close decisions, all in title fights.
The rest either plainly bombed out or fought just to survive and hear the final bell in dropping runaway points decisions.
The first Mexican with reputation of creating ring mayhem as a body snatcher that Manny met was Emmanuel Lucero in 2003. Manny stopped him in the third round while half consciously hanging on the ropes. My then wag officemate described it as "pinatulog ng patayo".
Next came Marco Antonio Barrera, then bruited as the best pound for pound fighter and he did not know what cyclone hit him.
Then Marquez, Morales, Oscar Larios, Solis and Mexican Americans Julio Diaz and Oscar de la Hoya. We all knew what happened in those fights. Particularly with the bigger Diaz and De La Hoya, as if they were chewed up by a real life Taz, the cartoon Tasmanian Devil.
At ringside, Mike Tyson himself would liken Pacquiao as the Energizer Bunny.
The last prominent Mexican warrior Manny would face was the big Antonio 'Tornado' Margarito and Manny mangled him so bad that Manny himself pleaded with the referee to stop the fight already. The ref didn't and Margarito heard the final bell but with a busted eye socket!
Mexican style? This isn't a putdown but by and large, it did not work well versus primetime Manny Paquiao.
But then again, we can only fantasize how Chavez Sr and Manny would have gone prime for prime, though.
The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.
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