Iván “Iron Boy” Calderón faces tomorrow one of the toughest challenges of his career when he faces hard punching Mexican, Giovanni “The Aztec Warrior” Segura. Calderón (34-0-1, 6KO’s) has faced the likes of Hugo Cázares, Roberto Leyva, Nelson Dieppa and Rodel Mayol, all fighters with heavy hands, but Segura (24-1, 20KO’s) may turn out to be a little more complicated than the above mentioned fighters. Not only is Segura a “thinking man’s” brawler but Calderón has showed signs of slipping more frequently as the years have gone by.
In his last outing, Calderón faced hard-hitting but limited Jesús Iribe and was knocked down before finding his groove and out-boxing his opponent to a convincing decision victory. Iribe is no Segura and carried five losses into his fight against Calderón. Some against marquee opponents such as Edgar Sosa and Brian Viloria but two other were against unknowns Erik Ramírez and Jesús Jiménez. Segura’s only loss came at the capable hands of César Canchilla and was quickly avenged by an emphatic fourth round TKO.
For the Puerto Rican southpaw, the fight represents his first opportunity to unify titles, something he could never do at minimum weight despite having defended his WBO belt eleven times (His eleventh round KO of Edgar Cárdenas was a non title fight when Cárdenas failed to make weight) and this being his sixth defense of his light flyweight title.
Segura on his behalf won the Interim WBA strap on his rematch with Canchilla and became champion after Michael Koncz a towel in the ring during his fight against Juanito Rubillar. Segura was declared the winner and went on to defend against Sonny Boy Jaro, Walter Tello and Ronald Ramos, all fights ending within the distance.
Calderón is as pure a boxer as can be. He has to be, for twelve rounds every fight, for he has no power to end fights. Segura is an unorthodox puncher. Segura will look to pressure Calderón using not only his power but his feet. All others who have tried to pressure Calderón into fighting their fight have failed to use their legs to make their pressure effective. Even though Segura has never faced a fighter of the Iron Boy’s class (none have until they face him) he has shown he can cut off the ring when he gets to his opponents and that may be the key to defeating Iván.
Still, Calderón’s experience should help him negate his opponent’s advantages in size, youth and power. The champion from Guaynabo has proven versatile and effective against taller opponents with longer reach. His toughest fights have come against very unorthodox fighters, which Segura is one, but he has still managed to pull off victories in every one of them except his first fight against Rodel Mayol which ended in a technical draw. In this Ring Magazine’s Champion against number one contender, I expect the Champion to remain so.
The card is presented by PR Best Boxing and will be available through pay-per-view
