by Joe Calvey
"The Battle of South Texas is taking place in California," Paddy O’Rourke began as he called the waitress over to order yet another Guinness lager. O’Rourke is one of those guys who knows his way around a boxing gym, a dive bar or the betting window of the nearest horse track. I pulled out my pen and notepad.
"It’s going to be a pretty one sided battle." He said draining the last drops of his beer as he waited for the next one. "Omar Figeroa will destroy Corpus Jerry Belamontes."
In Carson, California April 26th at the Stub Hub Center Omar "The Panterita" FIGEROA, 24, will put his WBC Interim Lightweight Championship on the line against "The Corpus Christi Kid", Jerry Belamontes, 25.
"This is a fight that should have taken place in Corpus Christi as a main event." I offered. "Both guys have a lot of fans around here."
"Nah, showcasing Figeroa to a California audience is a smart play by Golden Boy. They’re building up Figeroa to be a super star. He’s got 22 wins, 17 knock out, no losses. Going 12 in that brutal fight against the Japanese guy got him a ton of interest. Belmontes doesn’t stand a chance." O’Rourke said as the buxom waitress brought him his beer. After she gave him her best come hither smile he told her. "I’ll make sure he tips you good." All I got? The once over from her and a forced tight smile before she left our table at Kody’s in Port Aransas.
"Look, I wish I was wrong, The Kid will throw some punches and take a lot more punches than Malik Scott did against Deontay Wilder." He said. Malik Scott, was an undefeated heavyweight until he faced another undefeated heavyweight, Deontay Wilder. Wilder knocked Scott out with the first punch of the fight. A left hook that hit palm first.
"He’ll probably be stopped around the 6th round but if it goes the distance, and there is no way it goes 12, it’ll be a boring fight if it does, but it won’t. Belamontes gets hit too much and Figeroa knows what Golden Boy wants and it ain’t no boring fight". O’Rourke licked his upper lip of brown beer foam as he said this.
Belamontes (19-3 with 3 KOs) has never fought a 12 rounder before and a look at his recent record exposes three losses in his last five fights. In one of those fights in San Antonio he took so many head shots it looked like he had a swivel in his neck.
"Figeroa has the power, speed and a sneaky lower angle of delivery than most guys with his right hand." Said O’Rourke who then drained half his beer and reached for my bag of peanuts. "He plain and simple turns lights out. Just ask Abner Cotto, 1st round, lights out in San Antonio. Belamontes is being served up."
I grabbed my laptop and started hitting the keys to put the numbers to the test on these two guys. Long ago O’Rourke showed me how to grade any match up. With his Effective Competition Ranking (ECR) of 28 Belamontes trails Figeroa’s 35. This is the rating judges the professional competition a boxer has faced. The higher the number the better the competition. If a boxer has been guided to a fluffy win loss record by facing barely breathing competition it will show. Experience, competition, wins, losses are all factored in.
"I’ll take the rib eye steak with the bleu cheese mashed potatoes and the fried asparagus to go and another beer, you want anything?" I shook my head no and kept crunching the numbers. Meanwhile O’Rourke watched our waitress walk away with a wistful but definitely lecherous look on his face.
Next, I calculated the Effective Competition and Power Ranking (ECPR). Factoring in power Figeroa’s ECPR is 60 while Belamontes is 14.
Just for fun I looked at the ratings I had stored for the Scott and Wilder fight. "Hey Paddy, Scott’s 74 ECPR was dwarfed by Wilder’s 141. No wonder it only took one punch!"
"He dove to avoid getting destroyed." O’Rourke spat out the words and took another drink.
I couldn’t help but wonder why Belamontes is taking a huge leap up in competition when he has a few bad beats to distance himself from? At 25 Belamontes doesn’t need this fight now.
I looked up to see O’Rourke filling his pockets with my peanuts. The front door of the pub opened and two rather large fellows walked in and started scanning the bar. O’Rourke whispered "Gotta run" got up and ducked out the back door. Lucky me, I like asparagus, O’Rourke forgot his steak.
BONUS PREDICTION:
Luis Collazo ECR 39/670 ECPR
Amir Khan ECR 34/580 ECPR
EDITOR'S NOTE: Jerry Belamontes lost on a split decision. The fight was a lackluster boring affair. It marked the first time Belamontes had lost to Figeroa in six meetings dating back to their amateur days.