Contender Champ Defeats Vernon Forrest

One after the next The Contenders have come and gone. Unimpressive, overhyped and out of their league. Until tonight. In a startling but well-deserved victory Sergio Mora outworked Ring Magazine’s #1 junior middleweight and WBC super welterweight champ Vernon Forrest to earn a majority decision win.

Few gave Mora a chance. Conventional wisdom said he was a club fighter who got a chance against the two-time Shane Mosley slayer not because of skill but because of his marketability. For the first three rounds this standard line of thinking seemed accurate. But in the fourth Mora landed some punches, found his groove, caught some momentum, gained some confidence, and slowly began to assert his dominance.

Mora’s and the fight’s signature round came in a wild action-filled ninth when Sergio cornered Forrest and landed a barrage of punches. The last one minute of this round was Mora’s emphatic announcement to the boxing world: “I am here and I am the better boxer tonight!”

The fight was not only expectedly close but also a surprisingly entertaining brawl that garnered a fair amount of drama. Both fighters risked point deductions with dirty techniques – Forrest with low blows and Mora with rabbit punches – but the judge fairly let them go.

This fight was the real life Rocky story that The Contender producers always dreamed the reality show could produce. After the fight Mora candidly admitted, “If The Contender had another loser they weren’t going to give us another chance.”He fought as if this fight was his last opportunity and he won over the Mohegan Sun fans who chanted his name as well as boxing fans watching at home.

No one enjoyed this fight more than Paul Williams. Not only did he score a first round knockout in Showtime’s first fight but his February loss to Carlos Quintana is no longer the front runner for upset of the year. That would be Mora’s victory tonight.

Photo Source: Newscom.com