A monkey, a flea, and the real meaning of Mexican Style

By Bart Barry-

Friday on a Golden Boy Promotions card that DAZN broadcast from Indio, Calif., super featherweight titlist Andrew “El Chango (The Monkey)” Cancio snipped and slipped the stiches from Puerto Rican Alberto Machado in a rematch of their February upset, shortly after Mexican light flyweight Elwin “La Pulga (The Flea)” Soto attritioned Puerto Rican titlist Angel Acosta early in their 12th round.

What Soto did, and Cancio did again, returned meaning
to what was meant by “Mexican Style” before a Mexican-trained Kazakh and his
promotional apparatus borrowed the term for HBO interviews.  Inherent in the term is an underdog status or,
at very least, an evenly matched contest in which a question of mettle must be
answered.

Fighters who employ Mexican Style generally lack
their opponents’ reach or handspeed or power; Mexican prizefighters do not wish
to get struck in the face any more than any other type of prizefighter does but
find themselves at physical disadvantages, realize getting struck they must,
and repeatedly, to prevail, and choose to continue under disadvantageous terms
until the last remaining variable is will.

Here’s what Mexican Style is not: Brutalizing a
20-to-1 underdog recruited from a lower weightclass and so hopelessly outgunned
you can dominate him without risking your own consciousness even a little.  Now that fighters who employ Mexican Style ply
their crafts on the same network as the fighter who uses a Mexican Style hashtag,
it behooves aficionados to continue our reevaluation of all things late-HBO.

In both matches Friday the Mexican Style fighters
had fewer tools than their opponents, both of whom happened to be Puerto Rican
– a detail more ethnic-rivalry coincidental than otherwise.  Setting aside the controversy that properly
accrued round comain referee Thomas Taylor’s premature stoppage – a surprisingly
favorable outcome for Soto, given how much time Taylor bought Acosta with round
3 warnings – the man with fewer tools in the kit all night was Soto. 

Acosta had reach and size advantages, yes, but
also technical advantages and a dandy uppercut boxing’s lexicon suggests be
just the thing to dissuade an over-the-lead-knee grinder like Soto.  The Flea, then, spent most of a half-hour
getting peppered coarsely by a man who knew how.  Yet Soto didn’t relent.  That relentlessness in the face of
unfavorable happenings is a hell of a lot more Mexican Style than making highlightreel
corner stoppages on feckless featherfists who cut quickly. 

Cancio, too, had the same obvious physical and technical
disadvantages in his rematch with Machado as he did in their first tilt.  The result of Cancio’s first fight, though,
the largest upset of 2019 until Andy Ruiz took Manhattan, emboldened Cancio to
reduce his rematch to a matter of willfulness even sooner than he did their
first time.  Machado wanted absolutely
none of it.  The better boxer with the
better pedigree and the better resume, Machado explained away to himself his
first loss like a matter of fitness; he’d nearly missed weight, starved himself
the day before the weighin, faded early and learned his lesson.

But the lesson Cancio gave was one he didn’t
learn.  Boxing circles round Cancio,
having the requisite fitness to hit him and not be hit by him, never was going
to suffice for Machado.  He needed to
hurt Cancio till The Monkey went physically unable to punch back.

“I’m so much better than this guy” – that’s the
trap into which Mexican Style has lured many a flashy prospect or titlist.  Cancio had Machado deep winded after six
minutes.  A deep winded man hasn’t much
left but will, and Cancio thrilled at such a contest 30 minutes early.  He took his time and lined-up the button shot
then watched Machado crumple, rise to a knee and prep for his facesaving 10 1/2-count.

Again, until the world met Andy Ruiz some weeks
ago, Cancio was boxing’s feel-best story of 2019.  Nothing about Ruiz’s ascent diminishes
Cancio’s (or Elwin Soto’s).  Cancio is a
proper workingclass prizefighter, a man you can decision far more easily than beat.

But while we’ve got Mexican Style in mind and
words to spare, let’s return to Andy Ruiz for a spot.  What he did to Anthony Joshua was Mexican
Style not for its toolbox disadvantage but for its colossal physical
disadvantages.  Joshua was much bigger
and much stronger and hit much harder but knew little of relentlessness.  When the time came for teethmarking the
gumshield Joshua made his escape.

Joshua surely awoke that Sunday morning with an
abiding sense of absurdity like what haunted Machado the day after his first
loss to Cancio.  Joshua, with many times Machado’s
sycophantic entourage, invariably learns as you read this the same sort of
wrong lessons Machado gained.

From Joshua’s hangerson we hear about prefight
concussions and the like, which, while quite possibly true, do nothing to
prepare Joshua for what relentlessness Ruiz will show him in their rematch.  Ruiz now knows Joshua’s a flowerchinned wilter
and the directest route to the mettle question should be Ruiz’s line.  If both men hit the canvas in rematch round
1, Ruiz knows, he’ll defend his title in half the time it took him to acquire
it.

But do you expect anyone is telling Joshua this?  Not when there’s a fortune to be made in
excuse-making: “Lucky punch, champ, he caught you cold, we know that wasn’t the
real AJ, can’t trust New York food, don’t know what the ref was thinking, we
know the truth, you wanted to continue – everybody knows that!”

Expect Ruiz to Mexican Style his way through
Joshua in their rematch the way Cancio just did Machado.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry