Maricela "The Diva" Cornejo

Long dubbed the "best female boxer not to hold a world title" by fans and media (but all of that scrying of her upside and latent abilities possibly seen to some extent through rose colored lenses, just because she is such a goddamn hottie ) finally got her shot to prove herself last September in the co-main event (with Cano vs. Madiev) on ESPN2. She challenged for the WBC female super middleweight title (vacated by Claressa Shields), against Franchon Rebecca Monich Crews Dezurn - aka Shields' 3x amateur rival and mutual professional debut opponent.

This was her chance to shine...and instead she was second best on the night. Crews Dezurn came in as the highly motivated B-side and on sheer grit and work rate managed to fulfill her own championship dreams while forestalling those of the Divas. Ignore the draw card making it a MD, this was closer to shutout. It wasn't even that Cornejo fought all that badly or did anything wrong (in terms of major strategical gaffes) - she was just shown up and Crews Dezurn exposed her level: she's okay at everything but not excellent in anything, nor is the sum of her average parts quite world class material...or so it would seem.

Now begins the rebuilding process to force a reversal of that impression and work towards another title shot. Cornejo is headlining a 360° Promotions card on Sunday, and Tom Loeffler has really scraped the bottom of the barrel, dragging up Erin "Steel" Toughill. Coming off a 13 year layoff from pro boxing, Toughill had a far more successful run in MMA...plus a stint on American Gladiators (yeah, bear in mind how long it has been since that show was on the air...)

Fully a decade older than Cornejo (not exactly a spring chicken herself) at 41, her biggest steps up in this sport were against 2nd-gen pugs with heavyweight ATG legends for dads: Jacqui Frazier Lyde and Laila Ali, daughters of Smokin' Joe and The Greatest respectively.

I'll watch this card for the pure train wreck appeal but really this is lose-lose for Maricela. Beating up a middle aged woman hitherto absent from the ring since 2006 is kind of a skeevy look...and if she loses or even struggles, oh mama...this beautiful star might wink out before our eyes...

 

Weigh-in streaming on Loeffler's channel on YouTube in 90 minutes.

 

Welterweight prospect Brian Ceballo in the co-main event.

 

I'm unemployed and neglectful of my gf.

 

This content is protected

 

I'm going to echo the same reprimand I had to issue yesterday to someone claiming Takeshi Inoue was a crap fighter: She's an okay fighter, just not elite. People need to stop proclaiming everyone who isn't on a p4p top 40 list to be "not good". There are thousands of active professional boxers. If you are even remotely competitive in a world title bout (as both Inoue and Cornejo have been) you don't suck.