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Few paid much attention to Mora as he prepared for Ouma, a former 154-pound titlist known for his non-stop punching, but I was drawn to his camp when news of his intense sparring sessions with undefeated junior middleweight punishers James Kirkland and Alfred Angulo got around the So. Cali. gym scene.

I checked out a 10-round sparring session Mora had with Angulo at the South El Monte Boxing Club and I saw a young fighter who was physically, mentally and spiritually ready to challenge any world-class middleweight. However, the cancellation of the Ouma bout threw the cerebral East L.A. native for a loop that was still evident in his lackluster struggle with Elvin Ayala last October.

The draw with Ayala, which was televised on ESPN, sparked a fan and media backlash against the former Contender contestant that was probably more vehement than what Margarito experienced after losing to Williams. The Latin Snake was christened “the Latin Fake” by message boarders and given absolutely no chance to even compete with Forrest when the veteran 154-pound title holder elected to make a voluntary defense against Mora.

We all know what happened on June 7th, the 7-to-1 underdog rose to the occasion in front of a small-but-appreciative crowd at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut and a national audience watching on Showtime.

Mora’s upset of Forrest not only earned him the WBC super welterweight title but consideration for high-profile showdowns with Oscar De La Hoya and Kelly Pavlik.

However, Forrest, the proud 37-year-old former two-division champ who has only lost to two men in a 43-bout career, forced a rematch clause in Mora’s contract and the two will fight again in the co-featured bout to Golden Boy’s Sept. 13th pay-per-view show headlined by Joel Casamayor-Marquez at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

The irony of making his first title defense on GBP-promoted Mexican Independence Day weekend pay-per-view card exactly one year after the cancelled show that nearly threw his career into disarray was not lost on Mora as he addressed the local media at a press luncheon announcing the rematch at El Paseo Inn on downtown L.A.’s historic Olvera Street.

“This time last year I was supposed to be fighting a legitimate ex-champ in Kassim Ouma on a pay-per-view undercard,” Mora told the assembled press Tuesday afternoon. “That fight got cancelled, but this time I’m in against a more respected ex-champ in Vernon Forrest, a future hall of famer, and our fight is the co-feature, so it’s an even bigger fight.

“This time around were fighting on my side of the tracks which means I’ll come with more aggression and more machismo. I know Vernon will come with more hunger. But I’m a young, hungry, undefeated champion now and I’m going to stay that way.”

Forrest, who was at the presser with his longtime co-manager Charles Watson and promoter Gary Shaw, acknowledges that Mora holds his title but adds that the youngster got lucky on June 7th.

“He fought a great fight, but he fought a Vernon Forrest who was at 45%,” Forrest said when it was his turn at the podium. “I had a bad night that night. I had a terrible night, the worst of my career; it was like I was fighting in quicksand, but on Sept. 13th Mora will fight the Vernon Forrest he expected in June, I’ll be at 100%.”

After a very intense staredown with Forrest, Mora sat down for a roundtable interview with local newspaper and Net scribes. The 27-year-old title holder pooh-poohed Forrest’s ‘off night’ excuse.

“That’s bulls__t,” he said. “Everyone who faces me says that. The truth is that I have a difficult style and they find that out first-hand when they fight me.”

When it was Forrest’s turn to sit down with the writers, he quickly dismissed Mora’s style as a reason for his flat performance.

“It had nothing to do with style,” he said. “All his style did was make for an ugly, stinky fight to watch, and it was even more ugly to participate in. It takes two to make a good fight and I couldn’t give anything to make it a good fight. I felt like I stunk out the joint that night.”

And the reason Forrest couldn’t give anything?

“People think I grew old overnight,” he said. “Wrong. Overtraining is worse than under-training. It had nothing to do with age, it was just that, physically, my body would not respond.

“It’s a misconception that I got old or that I took him lightly. I took him seriously. I trained from February to June for that fight. The problem was that I peaked early. I think I peaked in May. The fight was originally scheduled for April, then moved to May and finally to June.

“This time I’ll limit how much I’ll train for the fight.”

Forrest added that he knows how to handle Mora’s unorthodox style.

“His style stinks,” he said. “It’s as bad as Mayorga’s. I lost the first fight with Mayorga because I tried to slug with him. But with unorthodox guys, you have to slow them down. I did that in the rematch with Mayorga, which I thought I won, and I’ll do it with Mora.

“I could have done more in the first fight because I knew what he was going to do, it’s just that physically I couldn’t adapt to what he did. After four rounds I had nothing.”

Mora expects Forrest to have plenty this time around, he also expects the veteran to be more prepared for his unpredictable tactics, but he says he learned a lot about the Viper’s style from the first fight.

“Vernon’s very sly,” he said. “He’s a master at holding without the referee seeing. He holds and he tries to headbutt and elbow on his way in. He even kneed me in the chest during one clinch, that’s why I hit him behind the head, so I could draw attention from the ref. Vernon knows every trick in the book.”

However, Mora added that the rematch will not be about tactics and trickery. He believes that the stakes of the bout will bring out more sustained offense from both combatants.

“I think it’s going to be a more exciting fight this time,” Mora said. “I see in his eyes that I hurt his pride by beating him. He’s going to come to impress everyone and to impress himself this time.

“I’m going to be more aggressive. I’m going to throw more right hands and go to the body. I’m not going to hold back like I did the first time. It’s Mexican Independence Day weekend so I don’t mind being a little macho or spilling a little blood.”

Speaking of Mexican machismo and spilling blood, Mora, who is a frequent sparring partner with Margarito, was one of the Tijuana Tornado’s biggest supporters (outside of Steve Kim and Tony’s family) going into last Saturday’s welterweight showdown.

“I won big money on that fight,” said Mora, who owns the gym (Montebello PAL) where Margarito currently trains. “I knew it was going to happen [the eventual stoppage of Cotto], I’ve sparred with Margarito for years; sometimes he has good days, sometimes I have good days, but it’s always a war with him.

“I remember the first time I sparred with him was in 1999 in Oscar De La Hoya’s camp [for Ike Quartey]. I took one look at this lanky Mexican and I thought to myself ‘I’m gonna kick his ass!’. In the first round he hit me with a left uppercut that gave me a bloody nose and let me know right then and there that he was for real. I knew he was too much for Cotto. He’s my size, he’s as strong as a middleweight and he’s as tough as they come.

“There were no surprises on June 26th.”

THE CHALLENGE

Tickets for Mora-Forrest II, the co-feature to Casamayor-Marquez, are priced at $300, $200, $125, and $75 and may be purchased at any MGM Grand box office outlet and all Las Vegas Ticketmaster locations, or at www.mgmgrand.com and www.ticketmaster.com.

The card will be distributed live by HBO Pay-Per-View, beginning at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT, for the suggested retail price of $44.95.