|
Like the talented duo of
Erislandy Lara and Guillermo Rigondeaux, heavyweight Mike Perez - who opens up
this weekend’s HBO broadcast from the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec versus
Carlos Takam - is Cuban. Lara and Rigondeaux are stylists who employ deft
movement and elusiveness to win fights. They are the consummate boxers who
truly believe boxing really is the manly art of self-defense.
As for Perez (like his fellow
countrymen, is a southpaw), well...not so much.
When you ask him if he
wishes he could box like those two, he blurts out, “Oh, hell no.”
Unlike most Cubans, Perez
likes to initiate the action and mix it up. It's always been his natural
temperament inside the ring.
“I always fight like that. I
love to fight like that,” he said last week at a media gathering inside a
Manhattan Beach eatery. “I like it. Even in training, the coaches say, ‘You can
do something different,’ but I just fight like that.” Perez admits his style,
especially for a Cuban amateur, was highly unusual. “Yeah, pretty much. When I
was young and in school, I pretty much fought like that.”
And did Cuban coaches try
and alter his style?
“Sometimes, yeah,” he
answered, “because I wanted to get more punches. That's the way I fight.”
But with his insistence on being
so offensively inclined, Perez found himself excluded from a few national teams
as a Cuban amateur. Simply put, the amateur game was more about gathering points
than hurting your opponent and with that, Perez's style wasn't ideal at this
level. He recalls, “A couple of times, I was the number one fighter on the team
and they never put me on.” He remembers being replaced by Yoan Pablo Hernandez for
international competitions. “The rules of Cuba, they want, ‘Hit and don't get
hit.’”
This is fine if you're
boxing for trophies and medals. However, there is a reason they call this “prizefighting”
at the pro level, where there is a premium on being fan-friendly and entertaining.
It was a message Perez’s current trainer, Abel Sanchez wanted to impress upon
him as they began working together.
“Lucky for us, we had a role
model in Gennady Golovkin,” said Sanchez, who trains both men at The Summit in
Big Bear, California, “who at this point, is drawing crowds and selling tickets
because of his style. What I tried to explain to Mike is, ‘We're going to sell
tickets here in the United States. The heavyweight division has got a bad rap
now because of all the holding and clinching and out-of-shape fighters and if
we're going to be at the level you want to be at, this is how you're going to
have to fight. This is what you're going to have to do.’ Lucky for me, he came
with a style that was aggressive. Now, it's just a matter of modifying it to
suit us and to make sure he doesn't get hit as much.”
 |
Photo © Abel Sanchez |
This transition would've
been much more daunting a task if Perez was the classic Cuban counterpuncher.
“It would've been a
difficult job because of 20 years in training in the amateurs and in the pros,
it would've been extremely difficult because they don't want to change,” said
Sanchez, who finds today's generations of big men, well, hard to stomach. “Absolutely
unwatchable. It’s a wrestling match but the last 20 years have been that. If
you watch a heavyweight fight 20 years ago, you might have seen one clinch in a
fight. Now you see 10 clinches in a round, so yes, it's not worth watching.”
As the size of heavyweights
has grown, the problem is the skill level hasn’t followed and the Klitschko
reign of terror, while effective, isn't always aesthetically pleasing. At 6’1”,
Perez is more or less the size of the traditional heavyweight with the
requisite fundamentals to match.
Sanchez says his first
impressions of the Cuban were that he was, “very skilled, very technically
skilled, real aggressive - to a fault - because he put himself in situations [in
which] he was vulnerable. He was apt to get hit a hit a little more than I
wanted him to. But I'd rather have an aggressive guy. I'd rather have a guy
that wants to fight, that way I can mold him into that technician that I want.”
Exactly what the veteran
trainer wants.
“I'm going to be able to
sell him. I'm going to be able to put him on TV, have people be interested in
watching him. If I make him into too much of a perfect fighter, then he's going
to be boring,” stated Sanchez.
This is the problem facing
his compatriots from Cuba. When you ask Perez if he enjoys watching Lara and
Rigondeaux, he breaks into a smile that seems to say, “Ehhhhhh…,” at which
point, Sanchez comes to the rescue, “Well, they're his friends, so to a point,
yes, you enjoy watching them because they're your friends. You envy them because
they're technically sound. You enjoy them because they're in control of
everything they're doing but as a fight fan, you want to see somebody get hit.”
OK, so does Perez prefer
watching his stablemate, Golovkin over Rigondeaux (last seen clearing out a
ballroom at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City during his bout against Joseph
Agbeko back in December)? Again, Perez breaks into another embarrassed smile,
hesitating before you get an answer. He said in carefully measured words, “I
like to watch both. I watch both. I move too; y’ know. But I prefer to fight.”
It’s interesting that Perez
has this style, given the fact that growing up in Cuba, he didn't get to watch
professional boxing and the boxer he admired the most growing up was amateur standout
Mario Kindelan - who, in many ways, is/was the amateur Cuban prototype.
Sanchez points out, “He can
box too. He's swift on his feet; he moves well in the ring but unlike those
other guys, when he boxes more, he gets hit with more shots. When he's doing
what he wants to do - and he wants to fight - his strength and power keep the
other guys from doing what they want to do.”
In other words, Perez’s
defense is his offense.
In Perez, age 28 and with a mark
of 20-0 (12), Sanchez believes he has a heavyweight with huge upside.
“If [Managing Director of K2
Promotions] Tom Loeffler is able to get him some fights against the marquee
names, I think he'll do well. I think the Klitschkos’ reign is coming to an end
and I don't see anybody 6’6”, 6’7”, 6’8” to be dominant. So I think all the
heavyweights are going to be around 6’2”, 6’3”, 6’4” like they used to be and I
think because of Mike's skills and his aggressiveness, he'll be a very dominant
heavyweight.
“It's just a matter of
getting him those fights that he needs to win a title.”
HEAT WAVE FLURRIES
There seems to be some
optimism from the side of World Middleweight Champion Sergio Martinez in terms
of making a fight with Miguel Cotto. I'm told the deadline to make this a
reality is the end of this month. If they don't, both sides will go their
separate ways...So why is everyone so outraged by the Cubs’ new mascot?...So is
Jim Caldwell a good hire for the Detroit Lions? Can he make them a more
disciplined team?...When does “Bar Rescue” come back? I need some Jon Taffer in
2014 [Editor’s Note: March 9, Kimster]…
I can be reached
at k9kim@yahoo.com and I tweet at www.twitter.com/stevemaxboxing.
We also have a Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/MaxBoxing,
where you can discuss our content with Maxboxing readers as well as chime in
via our fully interactive article comments sections. |
