I saw Intentional Butt did a thread earlier that concerned Takefumi Sakata and that jogged my memory of Sakata's biggest rival, Lorenzo Parra of Venezuela. Parra was really good for a while. He beat Eric Morel, who was an outstanding fighter although he turned out to be a sexual predator. 5 title defenses before he missed weight and then handed the title over to Sakata on some kind of bizarre shoulder injury. I lost track of the guy after he got finished by Celestino Caballero and Jorge Arce but it turns out he ended his career on a 13 fight losing streak. Ouch! No disrespect to a former champ, but that's some Antwun Echols type sh!t Anyone remember this guy? Thoughts?
If I can be real for a second, i honestly thought he was one of those underrated gems from the lower weights when he was establishing himself. Disappointing he couldnt manage his weight issues but he really only lost to decent fighters up until his 2nd retirement. Then he was just a chunky shadow of his former self travelling the world to collects cheques.
No doubt about that. But like Parra the guy went on a huge losing streak at the end of his career. In fairness to Echols, a lot of that might have had to do with getting shot in the leg in 2007. Still, he was already on the slide before that.
He became a punchline in a hurry, but yeah, for a brief snapshot in time he really was. Even after the one-sided losses to B-Hop, some of that momentum remained and he picked up a couple more good wins - it was the Mundine loss that signaled everything totally unraveling.