It's not often that a world title fight, on a Saturday night, goes completely under the radar but this weekend has one such fight as Mexican Moises Fuentes (17-1-1, 8) attempts to claim the WBO "interim" Light Flyweight title as he takes on Colombian Luis De la Rosa (22-2-1, 12) in what could turn out to be a "sleeper" classic.
For those who haven't seen Fuentes before, where have you been hiding? The guy is a beast of a Light Flyweight (and had been a beast of a Minimumweight prior to adding 3lbs), he's tough, hard working, and a real night mare to fight with his toughness and pressure mentality.
Although of course many fans ignore the lower weight divisions Fuentes is one of those fighters who's style we can all enjoy. He's relentless in his pursuit of victory, he throws a lot, takes a lot and refuses to take a backwards step. It was his none stop pressure that forced the retirement of former Minimumweight great Ivan Calderon and also saw him scoring a draw against Donnie Nietes (in a bout I have marked down as a front runner for the robbery of the year).
Although Fuentes can often be made to look slow, with both his hands an feet, his toughness, combined with a determined body attack can eventually see opponents forced to slow to his level. When that happens he tends to be able to grind down an opponent to take a decision.
Whilst plenty of fans will have had the fortune of seeing the Mexican many fewer will have had the fortune of seeing his co-challenger. In fact in all honesty De La Rosa is pretty unknown outside of Colombia with only his two losses being of any sort of note at all.
The first of those losses came in 2010 in a split decision loss to very good Raul Garcia the second of those, coming earlier this year in fact, came to the unheralded Merlito Sabillo of the Philippines. Unfortunately with losses in both of those fights there is little in terms of noteworthy victories on his record, the best would be a domestic title victory over Luis Doria.
Despite the fact De La Rosa has lost his two highest profile bouts he hasn't actually looked that bad. His fight with Sabillo was exceptional before he was stopped whilst his loss to "Rayito" saw him dropping Garcia and being beaten by a single point on two card, whilst winning on the third. Sure he might not be a special fighter but in his two top tier chances he has performed very admirably.
The style of the two men should genuinely gel quite well here with Fuentes stalking and De La Rosa fighting hard on the back foot. Unfortunately for the Colombian however I can't imagine him lasting the 12 rounds with Fuentes's body attack pressure, though he'll certainly give it his all until his body folds.
Prediction-Fuentes TKO9
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