“I think around the second round, I realized that my plan was working because of the body work I was putting in,” Segura told Maxboxing.com earlier this week. “He had no choice but to stop. He was done.”
Coming into the bout, Segura and I spoke twice and he appeared to be very relaxed for a man heading into enemy territory to do what most boxing fans and writers (except this one) thought he could not. To this fight fan-turned-champion, going to Puerto Rico for the first time was many things beyond just going to fight Ivan Calderon.
“It felt like any other fight,” said Segura. “I took this as a vacation. I enjoyed it. This is a really tough, tough sport, you know? For me to go to Puerto Rico, for me, it was going to be like an honor to be there. I always had in my mind that the first time I go to Puerto Rico, I’m going to try and meet [legendary Puerto Rican fighter Felix “Tito”] Trinidad. He is one of my idols. And he knew about it and surprised me in the gym. ‘JuanMa’ Lopez always comes and trains right here at [Segura’s home gym in] Azteca Boxing Club and he told [Segura’s manager Richard Mota] he wanted me to come to his gym. They let us borrow their gym and everything. And all of sudden, I see this guy and it’s Trinidad. I was like, ‘Wow.’ I was trying to meet him but I never thought that chance would be there for me, you know?”
Even though he was about to fight a unification match, Segura said he felt like a fan meeting “Tito.” Keep in mind, at this point in our conversation, Segura has said only one thing about the fight. He almost seemed more excited about meeting “Tito” than winning the “Fight of the Year.”
“I didn’t know what to say; I was so nervous,” Segura laughed. “I was so excited after all this time, you know? I was just like, ‘Oh, my god I can’t believe this guy’s here.’ A lot of fighters supported me, not only Trinidad. Chiquita Gonzalez and Fernando Montiel, those are fighters that I love, you know? Trinidad is a fighter I admired a lot. He has accomplished a lot. And he went over and told me, ‘You know you got this.’ It was just such a surprise.”
After the fight, there was speculation that Calderon had fought the wrong fight; that he had stood and traded to make a point he could be exciting. Calderon himself later denied this and gave all credit to the body work of Segura. The champ would agree with that assessment.
“A lot of people in the media want to put reasons,” agreed Segura. “They say, ‘Oh, Calderon did the wrong strategy stopping and trading punches with him.’ He didn’t stop. I made him stop. He had no choice. He was getting hurt a lot to the body. And knowing what you know about that, being a boxer and actually knowing the game, you know? He immediately said in the press conference, ‘I didn’t want it to stop. I had to stop it because Giovanni was landing big punches to the body and I was hurt.’ And that was the reason he stayed and traded punches with me and that’s when I took advantage of it.”
For the first few rounds, it seemed as if Segura was being outboxed. It seemed that way because he was. Calderon would make him miss and turn to the left or right and walk Segura into a big shot. But little by little, big body shot by big body shot, Calderon slowed down, had to trade more and got a little closer to losing his “0.”
“It was just a matter of time,” Segura explained, “because a body shot, you don’t react to it right away. It takes a few seconds. If you noticed, the first big shot starting every round was to the body. I would land that. One of the first ones I threw [in the fifth], he reacted after and that’s when he stopped, like, ‘I’m going to try to make this guy miss and land a big one,’ you know? I knew that I would get hit with one or two but that I’d land four or five.”
Calderon only has 6 KOs in 36 fights. Not exactly a power puncher. But what he does possess is technique to spare and from that technique, power can be generated. There were a few moments that surprised me in the fight and those were the moments when Calderon sat on his punches and seemed to hurt Segura.
“Yeah he did have a lot of power, especially two of them that hurt me,” Segura freely admitted. “But not to the point of being in a dangerous situation, you know what I mean? It kind of stopped me from throwing more punches. I got caught good but nothing to worry about, you know? I knew I was going to land big punches, so I took the risk. All I wanted was to land some big body shots so that in the later rounds, I knew that he was going to go down.”
I picked Segura to win late in the fight. I figured it would take 11 rounds to wear down Calderon if it could be done. I also figured Segura would be badly outboxed in the process of beating down Calderon and thus be losing on all cards. Segura did it in eight and was ahead on every card at the time of the stoppage. Not bad for a guy with 12 amateur fights who’s only been boxing less than eight years.
When Calderon took the ten-count, Puerto Rico seemed to go silent in disbelief.
“I felt like I knocked out the crowd too” joked Segura.
The win did not surprise Segura at all nor the manner in which he did. What surprised him was that Calderon was able to go after the fifth round where he had trapped his opponent on the ropes and unloaded on him with a ton of heavy leather.
“I wasn’t surprised,” he said. “Like I said, it was just a matter of time, you know? I know a lot of people, the majority of people thought that I was going to lose that fight. I never had doubt in myself. I know what I am able to do. So I am not really surprised, you know? I just didn’t quite agree with the corner of Calderon. Because you know, Calderon after the fifth, they shouldn’t have let him go. He was saying that he didn’t want to come out. I hurt him. He said, ‘No, no, no, I’m hurt.’ But then the TV start saying on the English version, how the referee poked his eye. What the f**k are you talking about; the referee poked his eye? Man, all the work was in the body, you know? But the guy, he didn’t hear it, you know? And I’m seeing all these excuses by the media, you know? Especially the guy who was talking about the ring mats and the footwork and this and that. I was like, ‘OK.’ But I mean, nobody poked his eye; nobody did nothing to him. It was just the work.
“The reason why he didn’t want to come out is the body work and at the end of the day, it was too much and he admitted it,” continued Segura. “There was no point for him to continue on and receive more punches because he is a smart guy. He is a smart fighter and he probably has the opportunity of another title and why not bring around another rematch? They should think about him a little bit more. Taking care of him a little bit more. Saving what is left from Ivan Calderon and what he can do.”
So what’s next? There’s a rumored fight with Rodel Mayol in the works though I didn’t hear it from Segura. Who would the man at light flyweight like next?
“Calderon said he is going to take the whole year off until he starts fighting again. That’s it for this year about a Calderon fight,” said Segura. “About the next step, I’m just waiting for a call. Someone to say, ‘You know what? We got a date.’ I spoke yesterday with the media and the promoters and my manager and I told them, ‘You know what? Tomorrow, I’m starting at the gym so I don’t lose my conditioning.’ And I will pressure them to get as soon as possible a date. So today, I did my first workout and started on my running and my cardio and feeling very, very good.”
Seeing as how he didn’t sustain much damage, a sooner rather than later fight date seems very possible. Segura is already in the gym though sparring won’t begin until he has a fight planned. Now it’s time to continue working while looking over that great night and learning from it. Unified champ or not, Segura understands that he is a work in progress and is as willing a student of the game as I have met.
“I learned a lot of things from this fight,” he said. “I also made him miss a lot of punches, you know? I got to a point where I was landing with the jab, everything that I wanted. The uppercut, body shot, straight hand, the jab, hooks. I was able to put my work on every kind of angle that I wanted to hit off. So I proved a point when I say that I want to be a smart fighter and I am. I prove it, you know? I got to a point where in the eighth round, I put Calderon to the ropes and he barely hit one or two punches, you know? I feel really, really fast and strong. I’m learning from my mistakes in this fight and also I figured out what works for me too.”
When I first met Giovanni Segura, I did not know what to expect. I had seen him fight and go to absolute war but I didn’t know with his inexperience and lack of traditional looking technique how far he could go. It turns out, that is Segura’s favorite question to himself. Only time and this man’s will can fully answer it.
“It feels good,” Segura said of the win and of fulfilling yet another goal in his life. “My body feels so good. I feel like I am learning and progressing with every fight that passes. And I know I can do more things. Not only this. I am so happy because I always challenge myself and I always want to know how far I can go because I feel I am still learning. I always tell myself, ask myself, ‘How far can you go?’ I push myself and I get there. Now I got this far and I know I am learning and I know I can move onto 112 and 115 because I am feeling really strong.”
You can email Gabriel at maxgmontoya@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/gabriel_montoya and catch him on each Monday’s episode of “The Next Round” with Steve Kim or tune into hear him live on Thursdays at 5-8 PM PST when he co-hosts the BlogTalk radio show Leave-It-In-The-Ring.com. Gabriel is a full member of the Boxing Writers Association of America.
