Grzegorz Proksa and Sergio Mora will face off on Friday night. For both fighters it is critical to win if they are going to have a future in boxing. Grzegorz Proksa After making top rated Sebastian Sylvester quit on his stool in three rounds, Grzegorz Proksa burst into the middleweight scene. Being annihilated by Gennady Golovkin brought him back to square one and now he has to win in order to claw back into the top-10. Lose this fight and Proksa is not even a gatekeeper due to his lack of name recognition. Sergio Mora Who cares who won The Contender? Nobody. And Sergio Mora acts as if that alone should make him worth watching. No wonder he lost twice to his Nemesis Vera, the guy actually walks forward during a fight. Not to mention the dreadful Shane Mosley fight. Mora thinks he has a license to bore. So this is how these two ended up fighting each other: Proksa desperately needs more spotlight and a win on HBO in order to stay relevant. Mora needs a win in order to have a future career at all. So how do these two match up: Style - Proksa boxes and lunges forward to land overhand lefts. Mora jabs and retreats with the occasional straight right. Stylewise I consider them equal but there is a lot more sparring partners with Moras style than Proksas style so it should be edge Proksa for the first few rounds. Size - equal. Both are rather small for middleweight. Power - Proksa. Much better KO ratio. Moras punching power is so weak that even flush shots hardly moved Veras head. Ring generalship - Mora slightly better. Possibly. Conditioning - equal. Both can fade in a long fight. There is however a huge question mark regarding Mora as he has had a 11-month layoff. Proksa had the sense to take a tune-up match. Wear and tear - both are in theory fine. But Proksa damaged his hand in his March fight, if this opens up the fight could turn very quickly. Skills - Mora does not feint much. Proksa feints too much. None of them really has a jab. Mora does not counterpunch, Proksa at least tries. Edge Proksa. Defense - Mora relies on his legs, moving away from danger. Proksa uses upper body movement to avoid attacks and create openings. Slight edge to Mora. Prediction A close fight, difficult to score, but the judges favour Proksas much flashier style and awards him a unanimous decision. you agree?
In general I agree with the breakdown. I see this as a fight with two possible outcomes: -a fight where there will be a few rounds clear for both guys and a few toss up rounds with a debatable decision being awarded to... Proksa. Fans of defensive movement and countering will favor Mora. -OR a fight where Proksa overpowers Mora and either wins almost every round past the first couple or even stops Mora. Mora has done just enough over the past few years to stay relevant enough for the fight to have meaning, but I really do think he's well past it. He had trouble with Vera and I think Proksa hits a lot harder than Vera; although durability, effective pressure, inside fighting, etc. could all possibly lean Vera's way. We've got to keep in mind that Proksa has also looked like trash since the awesome Sylvester win. I tend to lean with my first option, close debatable decision for Proksa.
Proksa said that should he lose to Mora, he knows his career as a contender is over, but I doubt he looks good vs Mora, just a bad stylistic matchup
I really believe Proksa is underrated since the Hope loss. My idea after watching that fight made me rethink Proksa's ability to overcome adversity (early cut by headclash made him drop a class if not two), but that doesn't mean he was a hugely overrated fighter at the time like some say. Most guys in the RbR still had him winning actually, and the rematch didn't leave much room for doubt he was well above Hope's level. Losing to GGG that way was kinda expected because of that aforementioned ability to overcome adversity (in this case, taking huge powershots from one of the biggest punchers P4P). But Mora just has not much pop in his hands and barring The Latin Snake makes it a dirty fight, I can't see much adversity coming Proksa's way in this one. I bet he can implement his "everyday man's Maravilla" style like he's used to, and might even be the fist to stop Mora. Or win a close but decisive UD.
Kinda this ^ Lotta folks kinda write fighters off after a coupla of losses without looking into the circumstances. Proksa was proving himself a capable fringe level contender, and there's no reason to believe this has changed. I see him winning in some style, if perhaps not 'comfortably' - Proksa will probably never get his hands on a belt, but is good enough to make an OK living from boxing.
I agree that it should be close and that Proska will probably get the nod. I suspect the ring rust will hurt Mora early as he'll start slowish(which he generally does anyway) and Proska takes the early rounds with Mora having a decent finish to make it interesting. Neither fighter is likely to stop the other but obviously Proska has the better chance of the two of pulling it off if it were to occur. Mora is not as boring as advertised given the right matchup, but unfortunately with two kind of awkward fighters in there it's likely to be pretty ugly this time. A nice matchup on paper for FNF though.
Theres a chance mora just frustrates him into lunging face first. I read somewhere that GP is basically self taught and it shows. So unorthodox its unreal. Mora SD
What the ****!?!?!? :blood :rofl Proksa looks fancy using his jerky quasi-slickness against stationary and lower-level opposition, but it pales in comparison to genuine slick defensive styles like the one employed by Mora. ...and I ****ing hate Mora, and do actually like Proksa. It's just ridiculous to say Proksa has the edge in counter-punching or that defensively they're even close.
IntentionalButt, I actually partially agree with you. It is just that I can not bring myself to call the constant retreating of that Mora guy for "defense". It is more a sort of flight, or desertion ...
I hate the guy passionately, but must begrudgingly admit his D is quite adept. He doesn't just run. He uses head & upper body movement, gets his arms in the way, picks shots off with slaps, rolls with punches/into clinches, etc. Proksa just does the flashy hands-down jerk-away showboating daredevil stuff against slow/inaccurate opponents to dazzle the crowd but I wouldn't say he's great defensively overall. With him it's more prestidigitation than substance.