Mares scores unanimous decision and asks for Donaire all over again

LOS ANGELES – It was one fight full of many styles. From slick to awkward and lots of good, bad and unlikely in between, there was not much that Abner Mares and Anselmo Moreno didn’t try.

In the end, however, Mares found the best fit.

Mares did so with the smarts and patience of a man dangerous and clever enough to pick a lock. The combination to unlocking Moreno was simple enough, although elusive long enough to even rattle Mares. But Mares recovered and remembered what he had practiced and how the twelve rounds had started.

Body shots and the right hand were always the key. One after the other Saturday night added up to Mares’ unanimous decision over Moreno for the World Boxing Council’s super-bantamweight title at Staples Center. The judge’s scores were 116-110 on two cards and an out-of-whack 120-106 on a third.

“There was a moment when I Iost my composure in the middle rounds,’’ Mares ( 25-0-1, 13 KOs) said.

His corner’s advice and an ability to think through adversity, however, saved him from a loss that would have eroded his hopes of battle for supremacy of the 122-pound division.

“I want to fight Nonito Donaire,’’ said Mares, a Golden Boy fighter who is caught in limbo in the feud between his promoter and Top Rank, Donaire’s representative.

Only a Golden Boy-Top Rank alliance can make that happen. World peace might happen before then. But the fearless Mares will continue to lobby for what he wants and continues to earn. Against Moreno (33-1-1, 12 KOs), he encountered an elusive Panamanian who moved one, then another and always out of range. But Mares pursued, often running straight at Moreno. The early body punches were designed to slow him down. For a while, they did. But Moreno began to stand his ground and exchange with Mares. That was a surprise.

But in the fifth, Moreno paid for the move. Mares knocked him with a beautiful.

“It’s the first time anybody has ever knocked him down,’’ Mares said. “I couldn’t let him get comfortable with his style, because he’s too good at it.

“I made it my fight.’’

The card also included Los Angeles bantamweight Leo Santa Cruz (22-0-1, 13 KOs) in an impressive ninth round knockout of Victor Zaleta (20-3-1, 10 KOs) for the International Boxing Federation’s 188-pound title. Santa Cruz looms as potential Mares’ opponent. He’s a Golden Boy fighter. Give the current state of the game, no other explanation is necessary But don’t tell that to Mares.

“I want Nonito Donaire,’’ Mares said once, twice, three times. “Santa Cruz is a good fighter. But I want to fight the best.’’

Enough said.

Free and Still Powerful: Angulo back with quick KO
They took away his freedom, but none of his power.

It took Alfredo Angulo less than a minute to reclaim a future that had been in doubt throughout a seven-month stretch in a California detention center for a reported immigration violation. Fifty-six seconds after the opening bell, Angulo (21-2, 18 KOs) unleashed a sweeping left hand that knocked out Raul Casarez (19-3, 9 KOs) while exorcising long hours of waiting, wondering and never knowing.

Angulo knows now.

“Perro is back,’’ said Angulo, a Mexican junior-middleweight nicknamed Dog.

Exactly when wasn’t certain Saturday night.

“I could fight again in 20 minutes,’’ said the bearded Angulo, whose biggest victory was in just knowing that there would be a chance at another one.

Cleverly stays in Hopkins hunt with TKO win
Talk about a Nathan Cleverly-Bernard Hopkins fight only figures to get a lot louder after his eight-round TKO of Shawn Hawk.

Cleverly (25-0, 11 KOs), a Welshmen and the World Boxing Organization’s light-heavyweight champion, dropped Hawk (22-3-1, 16 KOs) twice in the seventh round and again in the eighth. Cleverly was stronger than Hawk. More important, Cleverly’s work rate simply overwhelmed the fighter from Sioux Falls, Iowa. That’s not much of a surprise. Cleverly’s trainer is Enzo Calzaghe, who trained son Joe to beat Hopkins.

Cleverly is one of three-to-four possibilities for Hopkins in a bout projected for March 9 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. The UK also has been mentioned.

On The Undercard
The Best: Garden City, Kan., has given keys to the city to Brandon Rios and Victor Ortiz. City fathers might need to make a third one. Junior-welterweight Antonio Orozco is beginning to look like the third world-class fighter to emerge from an unlikely boxing town in southwest Kansas.

Orozco (16-0, 12 KOs), born in Mexico and raised in Garden City, was brilliant in scoring a sixth-round stoppage of Danny Escobar (8-2, 5 KOs) of Riverside, Calif. Orozco stunned Escobar midway through the sixth, then swarmed him and dropped him along the ropes at 2:06 of the round. Escobar had to be helped off the canvas and onto a stool before he could leave the ring.

The Rest: Ohio middleweight Chris Pearson (6-0, 5 KOs) won a TKO, but there was nothing technical about his crushing stoppage of Jeremy Marts (8-13, 6 KOs) of Iowa at 44 seconds of the first round; welterweight Alonso Loeza (3-7-1, 3 KOs) of Gilroy, Calif., scored a fourth-round TKO of Zachary Wohlman (5-0-1, 1 KO) of Hollywood, Calif.; Texas bantamweight Isaac Torres (3-0, 2 KOs) won a majority decision over David Reyes (2-3) of Montebello, Calif.; and Cincinnati junior-welter Robert Easter (1-0, 1 KO) enjoyed a knockout debut with a second-round stoppage of Eddie Corona (0-2) of Omaha.