Claudio "The Matrix" Marrero

This guy looked spectacular last night on the special Saturday night edition of Solo Boxeo. He pummeled Francis Ruiz into submission in a round and a half, looking very sharp the whole time.

edit: here it is...
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The young Dominican southpaw featherweight has very good speed and an aggressive disposition. It's a nice style to watch, at least against the somewhat toothless come-forward types he's still being matched with.

He's now 10-0 with 9 knockouts. It's early days to start harping on about a 90% KO ratio, but he looks to have the goods and not just be another empty record padder. He has nice pop - maybe not crushing single shot power, but he's able to get rid of guys with rapid-fire bursts that don't seem to be have much pitty-pat in them. He seems to realize that he should be stopping the level of opposition he's bee in with so far, and he's taking care of business with aplomb. For such a novice he's already got terrific footwork, head movement, reflexive instincts and especially punching execution. The only big criticism so far is that he tends to fall inside atop his opponent a bit too frequently when cranking it up and smother his own work, not leaving himself room to operate and paving the way for sticky clinches, headbutts, taking or giving a shoulder to the face etc.

Here was his previous win, just last month:
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(he's in the black and red)

Another from back in March:
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(he's in the gold)



Here he is sparring Cuban-born Floridian fellow southpaw Angelo Santana:
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Santana, by the way, is an entire stone heavier than Marrero (14 pounds) on fight nights. That is three divisions higher. :yikes That much bigger, and no slouch at all going by his pro record and a staggering 180-3 mark as an amateur in the cutthroat scene back in Cuba. Look how well Marrero did in spite of all that. Pretty impressive.

He has also sparred with light middleweights of fringe contender level.



With any prospect only just hitting double digits, it's still hard to tell where his ceiling might be. He's one to track for sure, though.

 

Oh and before anyone pipes in with "He stole Andre Dirrell's nickname", you can just **** off.

Dirrell hasn't accomplished near enough to have an untouchable ring name yet. It isn't like Sugar or Marvelous where you can get mad at some unworthy upstart for using it.

"The Matrix" is up for grabs to anybody with bullet-dodging defense.

 

The Ruiz KO isn't up on Youtube. I'd thought it might be by now. Over 24 hours... At this point you start to think it might not get uploaded. That's too bad; I already deleted the card off my DVR. (could have uploaded clips taking mobile-phone video of my TV)

Anyway, the finish looked much the same as the one against Jones. His overall performance was better. Smoother. Quicker, longer combos. A lot less glomming onto his victim, and a lot more hitting.

This kid is improving markedly each time out, I think.

 

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Did you see him smash up Ruiz the other night on Solo Boxeo or just the clips above?

 

Nah, we can definitely determine that he's good even with the lack of real tests to date.

The question is whether he can become more than good ie championship material. That we'll have to wait and see about.

 

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:happy