With a festive crowd numbering over 1,000, Loyes Promotions presented “Casta de Campeones (Champion’s Fury)”, their second fight night in as many months, at Tijuana, Mexico’s Municipal Auditorium. After the assembled audience enjoyed the triumphant victory of the Mexican National soccer team over Costa Rica by a score of 3-0 on a large screen, they settled down and enjoyed nine bouts which featured up-and-coming local talent.
In the main event, crowd favorite David De La Mora (18-0, 12 KOs) remained unbeaten, but only after surviving an early knockdown at the hands of, arguably, the toughest challenge of his career in Luis “Chapito” Valdez (12-4-1, 5 KOS) of Los Mochis, Mex.
In the first, De La Mora established his quicker hands early on as he baited his time and then unleashed a flurry of quick punches that landed on his opponent with bad intentions. “Chapito” proved no slouch, as he was not afraid to exchange leather with “Morita” even though the bombs were coming in hard and often. His strategy proved to be fruitful as Valdez landed a looping over hand right near the end of the round to drop De La Mora in the neutral corner. De La Mora looked more embarrassed than hurt since he had to pull himself up in front of his home crowd to easily beat the count.
Both fighters started the second tentatively as they had tasted each other’s fire power in the first. As De La Mora was taking on the role of the aggressor to make up for the lost point in the first, Valdez was trying to time “Morita” and catch him as he was coming in with a straight right hand that proved successful a couple of times in the round. The round soon took a pattern of both fighters circling around the center of the ring and suddenly unleashing 3-4 punch combinations, usually at the same time which whipped the pro-“Morita” crowd into a frenzy.
De La Mora who fights out of the CREA Gym, began to develop a small mouse under his left eye as he kept up the pressure on Valdez. De La Mora seemed to get more confident as the seconds ticked away in the round as he began to turn his punches better and with more power. Valdez was not to be undone as he kept right up with De La Mora releasing his own set combos in quick, short spurts.
Early in the fourth, De La Mora scored with a right hook that dropped Valdez to his knees. As he began to get to his feet, he complained of a rabbit punch to referee Juan Jose Ramirez but the official continued with his count. Valdez beat it, but appeared upset, deciding to take it out on De La Mora as he trapped his opponent against the neutral corner to unleash a flurry of punches. De La Mora reacted in kind but with much straighter punches that got there quicker. De La Mora began to damage Valdez.
The action continued in the fifth as both began to throw and land big punches as they took turns getting trapped in a neutral corner. De La Mora suffered from a cut over his right eye that was difficult to determine if it was from a cut or a butt. Sensing that he was beginning to be worse for wear with the mouse growing under his left eye and the cut over his right, De La Mora turned up the heat in the sixth and promptly dropped Valdez again with a straight right hand. Valdez beat the count but only to go down again from a left hook to the body. This time, Valdez was not able to beat the count.
Official time was 1:09 of the sixth round.
Photos by Paul Gallegos