Rivera Defends Title
Boccanegro, Torrancillas Steal Show

ringside report by "bad" andy rivera
photo by tom "el pollo" hernandez

Early Saturday morning in Juarez, Mexico, Arturo Rivera defended his WBC Light Heavyweight Continental Title with a 12 round unanimous over Juan Carlos Viloria of Columbia, but it was lightweights Miguel Torrancillas and Miguel Boccanegro who stole the show as they battled each other in a war won by Torrancillas.

Outside the Boccanegro-Torrancillas fight, the fight card was uneventful. There were plenty of mismatches with quick early knockouts. Yet, the better battles were happening outside the ring between promoters in Juarez.

The War before the Fight Card

We have been covering boxing in Juarez for over a year and a half now and have repeatedly said that, these have are the best fight cards we’ve seen. At the time my partner, “El Pelon”—as he is known in Mexico—Chris Cozzone and myself started covering the fights, there was only been one promoter in town: Promociones del Pueblo, run by Oswaldo Kuchle. In March of this year, a second promotional company, Boxeo Verdad , run by Valentine Calanche, came on the scene.

Boxeo Verdad’s first show was a complete learning process as very few fight fans came to the fights. The ring looked more like a baseball infield, with dirt everywhere, and lighting was terrible. It was just a bad start for Verdad. They reportedly lost $60K, but you had to give them the benefit of the doubt. They said they would be back—and they were.

Boxeo Verdad blamed Promociones del Pueblo for their bad turnout, citing that Kuchle had helped change the dates and took the ring out of the Poliforo, where the fights are held. Whatever the reason, Verdad had work to do to improve their shows.

Verdad has now had four fight cards—yet they continually disregard the media. Not only do they not return phone calls, but they like to keep their cards a secret, for some reason. We find out through our Juarez connections that there is a fight card and cover the fights, anyway.

Last March, we asked the question: Can Boxeo Verdad compete with Promocions del Pueblo?

The answer is a flat NO.

IF YOU CAN’T BEAT THEM, BUY ‘EM

Boxeo Verdad’s 4 fight cards have had the same numbers in attendance as just one card put on my Promociones, whose cards average anywhere from 4,000 to 6,000 people.

Over the last few months Verdad has tried another strategy to compete against Promociones del Pueblo—buy up the fighters.

Verdad has made calls to Promociones’ top fighters—which include Kirino Garcia, David ”Tacubayo” Murillo, Ranchero Ramirez—and their fighters. They’ve offered large amounts of signing bonuses as well as guaranteed purses, figuring that if they get Promociones’ fighters, they’ll get the crowd.

Verdad couldn’t get all these guys away from Promociones—but they did some of them. This past month, Verdad offered WBC Light Heavyweight Continentals Champion Arturo Rivera a $10,000 signing bonus plus $5,000 per fight. When Rivera went back to Kuchle to let him know of the offer that he received, Kuchle told Rivera that he didn’t want to go into bidding wars. Even though Kuchle had a contract with Rivera, which the Juarez Boxing Commission had “lost”, all of a sudden, Rivera, along with his trainer, Edgar Garcia, left Promociones del Pueblo.

Garcia, who had trained many of Promociones’ fighters, took other fighters over to Verdad: including Rodrigo Facio and Roberto Gomez. Carlos “Ferrus” Contreras is also in the process of deciding.

Stay Tuned.

The Fights

In the Main event Arturo Rivera won a unanimous decision to retain his WBC Continental title over Juan Carlos Viloria. The fight looked on paper to be a good fight as Rivera and Viloria were in great shape and both looked ready for war.

Rivera, a short stocky muscular fighter, kept the pressure on all night as he consistently backed Viloria to the ropes. There was plenty of holding as both fighters clinched after every combination.

It got so bad that after the end of every round more and more of the crowd would get up and leave, prompting me to ask my photographer Tom Hernandez, “Are we at a Dodger game”? The Dodger faithful are notorious for arriving early to a game and leaving before it’s over.

By the time the fight had ended it the Poliforo looked empty. Rivera looked unimpressive but had done enough to keep his belt. The cards were as follows: 120-109, 119-110 twice all for Rivera.

In the co-main event WBC Continental title fight Bantam champion Evaristo Primero knocked out Jose Luis Velarde in the second round. Velarde was announced from the hometown of Julio Caesar Chavez, Culican, Mexico, but he was not anything like the “Lion of Culican”. Valverde was knocked down three times in the first and down for the count in the second.

Old veteran and former world titleholder, Rodolfo Blanco took on Hector Marquez. Blanco is not half the fighter he was when he fought Johnny Tapia in 1998. He has been knocked out by up and comers this past year. This fight was no different. The first round was slow paced as Marquez tried to get closer to Blanco as Blanco used his jab to stay away from Marquez. In the second Marquez unleashed three straight hooks, two to the body then one to the head, which ended the night for Blanco. Blanco would lie on the canvas for five minutes while doctors looked at him to see if he was ok. Blanco has seen his better days and should retire. Let’s hope he does.

The best fight of the night was a bout between Miguel Torrantillas and Miguel Boccanegro. This bout was a war. Boccanegro was the crowd favorite when the fight began but Torrantillas was the “man” when it ended.

The first two rounds were slow with both fighters landing jabs and hard left hooks. Nither fighter would gain an edge. In the third things heated up quickly, as Torrantillas landed a hook to the head to Boccanegro, Boccanegro stumbled to the ropes. Just as Torrantillas went for the kill, Boccanegro landed a desperation right hand to the jaw of Torrantillas. Torrantillas went down. Torancillas was up at the count of six. Torrantillas then went right after Boccanegro. Landing left hooks to the head and body. The crowd was going crazy. Torrancillas now had the crowd on his side as he came back from the knock down to win the rest of the round.

In round four and five, Torrancillas and Boccanegro went back and forth, trading punch after punch with neither fighter taking a step backward. After each round the crowd gave a standing ovation.

Round 6, 7, 8 saw Torrancillas take control as Boccanegro would begin to tire. Torrancillas was the stronger of the two and had more on his punches. Boccanegro couldn’t keep Torrancillas off of him, as Torrancillas would keep landing the left hook followed by hard rights the head of Boccanegro.

The decision was unanimous as all three judges scored for Torrancillas. 78-73,77-75,76-74.

In other under card action Francisco Aguilar had an easy time with Armando Bosquez as he stopped Bosquez in the third round.

Alejandro Alvarado won a unanimous decision Carlos Alvendano, in a four round featherweight bout.

The first bout of the evening had Hector Martinez knocked out Jose Luis Velez at 2:24 in the first round.

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