by Fred De La Riva
21.09 - On October 12, Top Rank Boxing along with Showtime is presenting Latin Fury II at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim, California. The main event features a re-match between the WBO Welterweight champion Antonio "Tono" Margarito vs Danny " Dynamite" Perez. Anyone who was fortunate of enough to see their first encounter roughly three years ago, remembers Perez having Margarito down in the first round, though Margarito was able to weather the storm and come back to win in 8 tough rounds via split decision.
Perez now from San Diego, California, originally grew up in Oxnard and was part of La Colonia Boxing Club, which former junior middleweight champion Fernando Vargas has made famous. Danny Perez was actually part of a group called the "Three Amigos" that was made up of Fernando Vargas and another former world champion Roberto Garcia. Perez comes into the fight with a record of 25 wins, and only two loses. Fifteen of those wins are via knockout.
The champion Antonio Margarito made his name earlier this year by wining the vacant WBO Welterweight title and stopping the very tough Antonio Diaz, whose only loss at the time, was to "Sugar" Shane Mosley. During the press conference, Margarito alluded that his management team reluctantly agreed to fight Perez, but their goal is to unify the Welterweight division and "to not to move backward, and be recognized as a good champion, while making some money along the way".
Photo by Craig L. Moran.
Todd duBoef, Executive Vice President of Top Rank wants to have Andrew "Six Heads" Lewis, who will also be featured on the card, fight the winner of the Margarito-Perez fight. In an exclusive interview with East Side Boxing, Margarito and his manager Fransisco Ezpinosa did not equal those sentiments. Instead, they would prefer to fight against WBA Welterweight Champion Ricardo Mayorga of Nicaragua, or the WBC titleholder, Vernon Forrest. At this point of Margarito's career, they only want the best and toughest opponents.
During the press conference, I caught wind of a rumor that I thought would be interesting. The rumor around the press conference was that Margarito had fought Danny Perez the day after Margarito's brother had passed away.
Great story right?
Well as it turns out this rumor was wrong. Margarito confirmed to me that this story was not true. The rumor had inaccurately been reported in the press and he wanted to set the record straight. His brother had actually died about a month after the fight. The thing that made the fight so tough was that he had previously fought only one week before and he was not properly prepared for such a tough opponent as Perez. He took the fight only for the money. So if you see that alleged rumor reported as fact somewhere else, don't believe it.
On the under card, Eric Morel the WBA Flyweight champion is matched vs Thai fighter Kaowichit Denkaosaen. Denkaosaen is 20 and 0 with 8KO's. Also on the card as previously mentioned will be Andrew "Six Heads" Lewis and the always-exciting light heavyweight Julio Gonzales whose only loss comes at the hands of Roy Jones Jr.
The card will be televised on Showtime on October 12th at 10 P.M. EST. Tickets prices range from $20 to $150 and they can be purchased through www.ticketmaster.com.
You may contact the writer at reevee@earthlink.net
