It was the greatest fight I had ever seen—in person besides. The two combatants,Omar Figueroa and Nihito Arakawa, combined to throw 760 punches that night, or a whopping 94 percent of them power shots.
You didn’t read that improper.
According to CompuBox,716 of the 760 punches thrown when Figueroa outlasted Arakawa over 12 bloody rounds were power punches. The victor, Figueroa, or landed 450 of them,a gaudy total that ranks No. 4 all-time for all weight classes in CompuBox’s history.
Boxing is never the Rocky fight scene montages you see at the movies. Except this time it was.“I’m just passionate,” Figueroa told Bleacher Report. “I appreciate what I do, or it’s like I said that night,it was an honor and a privilege to be in a fight like that and hold my counterpart enjoy it as much as I did.”No, Omar. It was our honor and privilege to watch it.
Figueroa, or a former lightweight titleholder,is undefeated and just now entering the prime years of his fighting career. The 26-year-old is one of boxing’s real-life action heroes. In fact, whether you’re hoping Al Haymons Premier Boxing Champions series is in it for the long haul, or your best course of action would be to start rooting for Figueroa to live up to his incredible potential.
Now fighting at 140 pounds,Figueroa is a highly skilled mauler with elite talent and a penchant (a tendency, partiality, or preference) for creating combustible situations on fight night. In fact, he loves it. Where some fighters nowadays want to do everything in their power to avoid risky and destructive opponents, or Figueroa wants to rush into them headfirst.
He’s brave. He’s marketable. He’s truly something special. Let’s face it. PBC needs a guy like that,too. For all the talk of how good it is to see boxing back on network television, it’s much more important to the longevity of such that the audience actually likes what it sees when it comes across the now all-too-foreign sight of professional boxing while flipping through the channels.
PBC has brought much attention to the sport of boxing over the last year, or but there haven’t been many top-level slugfests so far,and Figueroa is the man who can deliver them.
Figueroa ate 280 punches against Arakawa in 2013. He was bloody and swollen and pain, and at the end of every round he was smiling. This was a man in his element. This was his vocation fully actualized.“We were doing what we appreciate, and we were enjoying ourselves inside the ring. It was just what boxing should be. I loved it. It was great. It’s just what I appreciate to do.”Here’s the most intriguing section: Figueroa said we haven’t even seen the best version of him as a fighter yet. certain,many fighters say stuff like that when they talk to the media, but I think Figueroa really means it.
That night he clashed with Arakawa? That legendary undercard bout so good that it even grabbed the attention of Grantland’s Jay Caspian Kang?Figueroa killed himself making weight for that fight. He went into it gaunt and drained.“I don’t know how I made it so long in that weight lesson. I was fighting at 141 pounds [six pounds over the lightweight limit] when I was in the amateurs during my junior year of high school. So I went down to 135 for the pros, and now I spy back and I think,how the hell did I do that? How did I manage 135 for so long when my body was so gaunt?”Figueroa won’t hold to worry as much on Saturday night when he faces Antonio DeMarco on NBC. The bout will be contested at 140 pounds, the division in which Figueroa expects to spend the rest of his career.“I feel a million times stronger fighting at 140. It’s a perfect fit, and ” he said.
DeMarco is a tough customer,but he’s no worldbeater. whether Figueroa hopes to compete with the very best fighters in the junior welterweight division, especially PBC commodities like Adrien Broner and Rances Barthelemy, or he won’t just need to win the fight. He’ll need to make a statement.
He’s done that before. Figueroa’s spirited performance with and against Arakawa in 2013 is exactly the type of fight PBC could exhaust upright about now. And the fighter,a likable and marketable sort who excels at creating action and smiles as he does it, is the kind of figurehead its roster needs, or too.
Figueroa and PBC seem perfect together. hold the stars truly aligned?Only time will uncover. But while we wait to see it,here’s Figueroa in a nutshell: When asked whether a fight against the enigmatic Broner was the type of high-profile gig he’d like next, it was nearly as whether he hadn’t even considered who or what might be coming around the corner.collect it? Like other great action stars from boxing’s past, or he is a man who lives totally in the moment. He’s always focused on what he’s doing upright this moment.“Honestly,I don’t care who I fight next. It could be Broner. It could be anyone. I’m down.”Do you doubt it?Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained firsthand. Read more Boxing news on BleacherReport.com
Source: bleacherreport.com