‘Cobra’ swallows ‘Mouse’, chokes on decision
Miguel “Mickey Mouse” Roman squeaks by with controversial split decision win over former champ Cesar “Cobrita” Soto

Ringside report by Chris Cozzone and Ricardo Trujillo
Photos by Chris Cozzone

Yesterday, due to extreme flooding and the chance that the city’s major dam was about to collapse, Mexico declared Ciudad Juarez a natural disaster area.

Last night, the danger zone extended into the squared circle of the Poliforo Juan Gabriel when, through ten rounds of back-and-mainly-forth action, up-and-mainly-down refereeing, the dam restraining 3,000 frenzied fight fans threatened to burst—and then did, when a split decision verdict was somehow rendered for Miguel “Mickey Mouse” Roman over cross-town rival Cesar “Cobrita” Soto.

But, instead of 9 million gallons of water held back by the border dam, it was 90 gallons of beer, catapulted in plastic cups and bottles, that pelted and flooded the ring and everyone in, and around, it.

The Promociones Del Pueblo card—one of the best seen in years, barring the verdict in the main event—was billed as “Pelea Soñada” (“Dream Fight”), but, it turned into a nightmare for Roman who kept his record unblemished, but not his reputation.

Soto, Juarez’s sole world champion, who held the WBC featherweight belt for six months in 1999 before losing it to Naseem Hamed, was, after 9 losses in six years with no wins, on the upswing with two straight victories. A showdown with the city’s No. 1 draw, Roman, was a natural. While Roman is being groomed for big things, Soto’s experience, recent wins and in-shape weigh-in of 124, his lowest in ten years, had the city evenly split.

Soto louses up Mouse

For the first five or six rounds, ‘Cobrita’ had Roman in constant trouble.

A tentative and defensive Roman gave way to Soto in the first two rounds. The former champ took the fight to the youngster, jabbing and setting up a left hook or right and never taking a step back. Throwing combinations, Soto piled up an early lead while keeping Roman on the move.

Outboxing turned into domination in the third and fourth rounds when Soto landed left hook after left hook on Roman, who had no answer other than launch a series of clinching that quickly had the crowd changing their chant to “MICK-EY! MICK-EY!” to “CO-BRA! CO-BRA!”

Roman, clearly hurt, was forced to the ropes time and time again, and Soto stepped up the pace through the fifth, enjoying a rare show of command in front of a crowd that clearly did not forget his past feats.

Despite being clearly outclassed, Roman showed heart, even egging on Soto when trapped like a rat against the ropes

House rouses Mouse

Despite the booing and hissing the crowd gave Roman, there were enough Mouseketeers in the Poliforo—not to mention the furious orders of trainer Felipe de la Torres—to encourage Roman to rally.

The tide changed in the sixth. After his slow start and on/off survival, Roman launched an attack that, coupled with Soto’s fading energy, carried him down the stretch.

Roman plowed into Soto’s body in the late sixth and seventh rounds. The big left hooks Soto had dominated the early rounds with were now replaced by big body shots and overhand rights by Roman. Soto stayed in the fight, however, jabbing occasionally and countering a right, making it close but losing his steam as the seconds wore on.

Soto took off the eighth and ninth, exhausted, while Roman piled it on, landing rights to Soto’s head, none of which seemed to hurt the former champ, however.

In the final stanza, the action went and forth—until Referee Javier Caballero decided the outcome of the fight by taking a point off Soto for a low blow.

During the fight, both fighters had been warned—for low blows and for clashing heads—but the meddlesome ref had stayed curiously close to Roman in those early rounds when he was clinching at every opportunity to stay upright. Roman had also been allowed to come out of his corner caked with Vaseline.

With the point deduction, Soto looked, at first, as if he was going to sock the ref, but he kept his aggression in check for Roman, and, when the fight resumed, he finished the bout by trapping Roman against the ropes and landing his best shots since the sixth round.

Assuming he’d won, Soto paraded around the ring with his arms over his head, while Roman, head down, returned to his corner looking shell-shocked.

Mouse gets doused

When the decisions were announced, it was Soto’s turn—and the crowd—to show their surprise.

One judge had it for Soto, 96-94; the other two tallied their cards for Roman, 97-95 and 96-95.

Fightnews/NewMexicoBoxing thought Soto had definitively won six; two were close, but edged by Roman; and two were clearly Roman’s, making it 96-94 before the unjust point deduction.

The crowd wasted no time voicing—and acting out—their outrage. In seconds’ time, the ring was flooded with peanut shells, plastic bottles, ice cubes, and countless cups of beer (at least, we hope it was beer).

Roman, huddled between cornerman and beneath his robe, scurried out of the ring while Soto held his arms apart, as if to say, ‘What do I have to do to win . . . ?’

‘I Had His Number’

“All of you—la prensa (press)—saw with your own eyes who won that fight,” the former champ, now 56-17-3, 40 KOs, said in the ring.

“I was animated and I won going away. I had his number . . . .”

Soto’s trainer called it “robbery of the highest order.”

“They robbed us like thieves,” he said. “This was the best Soto has looked in years. Soto f--- him up!”

Soto demanded a rematch.

“I don’t know what the promoter (Oswaldo Kuchle) was thinking, putting this ‘boy’ in the ring with me. I want a rematch.”

‘No Rematch,’ Says Roman

Roman did not have the look of a still-undefeated (17-0, 12 KOs) fighter as he sat in his dressing room surrounded by cornermen. Nor was there a fiesta feel to the stifling hot locker room.

“No, I won’t give him a rematch,” he said. “There was no need—I was the clear cut winner.”

Despite his all-too-often, seemingly-desperate clinching in the first half of the round, Roman said he was never hurt in the fight.

“I was never hurt, but I hurt him, though. When I got close, he held me. I hurt him on the inside he held on for dear life.

“He’s an experienced fighter but he’s also a dirty fighter. He hit me low many times.”

The 20-year-old Roman went on to talk about fighting in the U.S.

“I want to fight in the U.S. I don’t know who my opponent will be . . . .”

Roman might not have known at the time who his next opponent would be, but his promoter, Oswaldo Kuchle, surely did.

“Soto has already agreed to a rematch in two months,” he told us 40 minutes after the fight had ended—2:45 AM.

“It’s signed.”

When told that Roman had stated his disinterest in a rematch, Kuchle exclaimed, “He needs to grow up in the ring. Before he can fight across the border, he needs to clean up in his hometown.”

‘X’ marks the spot for ‘Zorro’

In the co-main, it looked as if tough veteran Ismael “Bolillito” Gonzalez had Juarez lightweight Javier “Zorro” Castro’s number.

Over and over, Castro stalked Gonzalez, throwing a jab and a right.

Over and over, Gonzalez countered with a straight-arm left hook swung like a baseball bat—half the time it sailed harmlessly through; half the time, it found it’s mark on “Zorro’s” unprotected face.

Until the end of the second when Castro wowed the crowd by stepping inside and throwing a short left hook to the liver that dropped Gonzalez to the ratty mat like the bag-of-bones he’d suddenly turned into.

The Mexico City fighter could not get up and he was counted out at 2:56.

Castro, now 9-1, 8 KOs, hasn’t quite captured his audience yet, but, if he’s not careful, those knockout punches of his are on his way to doing so.

“I was careful in the first round,” said Castro. “I wanted to feel him out—but I knew that he could not take my power.”

Gonzalez falls to 18-12, 7 KOs.

‘La Parka’ Takes ‘Comelonches’ Out to Lunch

In another cross-town rival match—this one between cruiserweights—Gustavo “La Parka” Enriquez handed Miguel “Comelonches” Zamarippa his first defeat.

No longer the house fighter, Enriquez not only had to fend off Zamarippa’s foul-filled fight tactics, but deal with a round cut down to two minutes after he had his foe hurt.

Still, he prevailed.

Towering over his chubby foe, Zamarippa—whose “supersize-me” diet has the natural middleweight fighting hundreds of burritos heavier than he should—Enriquez won the first round with his jab. Most of the time was spent trying to evade Zamarippa’s wild swings and unorthodox angles, not to mention butts and elbows from the gutsy brawler who fights with all the grace of an epileptic bull in a china shop.

In the second, he obliged Zamarippa by duking it out in close quarters. After tasting more leather than he should’ve-and hearing about it from trainer Louie Burke—‘La Parka’ changed his plan and came out for the third to dominate the rest of the fight.

By the end of the third, Zamarippa’s eyes were puffy from Enriquez’s right hands and, in the fourth, he had the brawling ‘Comelonches’ paying every time he came near.

Zamarippa did land some deadly shots, however, including one blatant headbutt and a low blow or two or three—all went unnoticed by the ref.

By the fifth round, Enriquez was controlling the bout from a distance and mid-round, Zamarippa’s eye was nearly swollen shut. Still, he came out for the sixth, refusing to lose, but Enriquez painted a bull’s-eye on Zamarippa’s purple-bruised eye, sealing it shut in the round cut short a minute.

The fight was finally called to a halt in the seventh, at :27, with the TKO win going to Enriquez.

“I knew I had him in the sixth,” said Enriquez, who makes his return to Juarez by climbing to 15-6 (12 KOs).

“I sparred with him before and I knew he could take punches. I was the promoter’s fighter before, but I was brought in as the opponent—but if he wants a rematch, let’s do it.”

Zamarippa suffers his first loss, dropping to 2-1-2, 1 KO.

‘Maromerito’ DQ’d

In an eight-round lightweight bout, Juarez brawler Jose Juan “Maromerito” Mendez (11-15-3, 4 KOs) lost by disqualification to Oscar “Ceviche” Ibarra (9-1, 3 KOs) in the fifth round after an intentional headbutt opened up a gash inside the orbit of the eye of the Mexico City fighter.

Ibarra—cousin to bantam champ Jhonny Gonzalez—was clearly the better boxer, but Mendez took the fight to him in the first couple of rounds. Crowding Ibarra only worked for a round-and-a-half; then, Ibarra figured out what he was up against and began to pepper the shorter Mendez with rights and jabs.

Ibarra’s punches became harder and harder and Mendez’s shots, less frequent, as the fight moved into the third and fourth rounds. As Mendez became less effective, his fouls increased until, in the fifth, he butted the taller Ibarra which resulted in the stoppage.

Olivas gets a break

After showing mettle in his last fight—a split decision loss to Cesar Soto—lightweight Oscar “Zurdo de Oro” Olivas (10-3, 4 KOs) was rewarded with an easy win over common foe Martin Quiroz Mendoza (3-14).

Mendoza, long on gameness, short on chin, showed the crowd that he’s been learning something in the ring with all those knockout losses. In the first, he kept Olivas away with his jab and actually landed a few decent right hands. But late in the round, an uppercut stopped Mendoza in his tracks.

Round two had Olivas on the offensive and, catching up with Mendoza, he dropped him twice with body shots.

After two more drops in the third, the ref called it off at 1:05.

Moreno shows his stuff, defeats son of legend

In the best undercard bout of the night, unwon jr. welter opponent Enrique Moreno (1-5) scored an upset win over son of boxing legend Jose Napoles, Arnold “Mantequilla” Gamboa (4-2, 3 KOs).

Gamboa might’ve had the heart of his old man, but he came up short in the gene pool with skill and chin.

Moreno, on the other hand, one of many Morenos spawned by former Juarez pugilist “Apache” Moreno, had been a big disappointment—until now.

Refusing to be the opponent this time around, Moreno took the fight to Gamboa and scored two knockdowns in the first round. Gamboa survived the round but Moreno bombed away at him throughout the second.

Gamboa was bleeding from his left eye by the middle of the third, but, having recovered from the devastating first round, he started to give Moreno a fight. The action went back and forth but it was Moreno’s jab that kept the fight in his pocket.

In the fourth, however, Moreno’s energy waned and his eye started to puff. Gamboa went on the offense, landing left hook after left hook. In the fifth, Moreno’s eye was starting to close as Gamboa’s lefts put the Juarez fighter shaky legs.

Gamboa had the tables turned until the middle of the last round when Moreno dug in and brawled on equal terms. At ten seconds to go, Moreno floored Gamboa but it was ruled a slip.

Despite the turnaround, Moreno picked up the unanimous win by virtue of the early knockdowns.

““I am so happy with this win,” he said afterward. “Finally, I was able to show my abilities as a fighter, and that I’m not lazy.”

Moreno’s father and trainer, “Apache”, was elated with his son’s win but honest about his future:

“The problem with my son is he does not want to train—he is my son but I must tell the truth. If only he would stay with it, he would be great.”

Reyna scores TKO

In the opening bout, lightweight Angel Reyna (3-0) scored a third round TKO over Juan Pablo Vazquez (0-1).

Vazquez was game but Reyna was, technically, the better fighter, using his long reach and landing straight lefts to keep his foe at bay. Vazquez was hurt with a lead right in the second and, nose bloodied, dropped by an overhand right in the third.

Vazquez was up at nine but Ref Gerry Vinzor stopped the bout at 1:18.

Bonus photos

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