THE WAR ZONE II: Revisiting Classics, Revisited (Vol. 5 - José Uzcátegui vs. David López)

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While the Bolívarian republic is historically less of a hotbed of pugilistic excellence than its neighbor way up north, there have been several great victories posted by Venezuelan boxers over Mexican rivals. A handful of them were for world championships, and vastly more important on paper than what is being subjected to my ham-handed autopsy here today. Among them are:

• Félix Machado TD6 a then-unbeaten José Martín Castillo to defend the IBF super flyweight title.
• Edwin Valero RTD9 Antonio DeMarco Soto Armenta for the WBC lightweight title.
• Jorge Linares TKO10 Óscar Larios for the WBC featherweight title.
• Betulio Segundo González MD15 Guty Espadas Sr. for the WBA flyweight title
• Antonio Gómez vs. Raúl Martínez Mora II for the WBA featherweight title.

...but few if any of those Méxiquense provided quite the gut-check that "Bolivita" would receive from "The Destroyer" in 2014. At this point in time, Uzcátegui - with his 316-11 amateur record and boasting obvious KO power in both hands - was generating quite some buzz, and yet in truth had only faced a couple of respectable opponents professionally, both also Mexicans, in: Rogelio "Porky" Medina (passing this exam with just "fair" marks) and Michel "El Bravo" Rosales Hernández (by then very much damaged goods, and fated to suffer half a dozen more stoppage losses in his eight remaining contests). The live-and-die-by-the-sword journeyman López, however - a local folk hero (dubbed “El Orgullo de Nogales”, literally, the city's pride & joy, by the media) - was steeped (like a mug of strong hot earl grey worthy of fellow bad ass baldie Jean Luc Picard) in tough competition over his 56 professional outings. He was a few years removed from a hot streak where he was triumphant in sixteen of those in a row, ended by then unbeaten and emergent mega-talent Austin Trout in what ultimately would stand as the only world title challenge López made in his lifetime.

The pressure was on for Uzcátegui, both literally & figuratively. His previous biggest stage was that somewhat lackluster affair with Porky Medina, co-headlining on Solo Boxeo. Now, he was expected to dazzle in the main event of a Box Azteca show, on hostile ground with a muy peligroso veteran in the opposite corner hoisting a loyal city on his broad, wiry shoulders.

The first round began with a stretching & yawning tone, Uzcátegui experimenting with different speeds, altitudes and angles with his left jab while López kept floating a reactionary right, sometimes just batting the Venezuelan's glove down like a Hungry Hungry Hippo scarfing a marble, and seeking a place to plug the left on the body. The lanky southpaw mongoose would ratchet up the intensity and clearly win the second, tagging Uzcátegui with some at least eye-opening if not outright stunning lefts up top.

Round three would be the proving grounds, and tiebreaker...and it was a WAR. López would continue to grind from behind the stern but elastic (sometimes given more of a rug-shake when thrown in multiples than a proper retraction & full reset) right jab and heavy left hands curling that rear shoulder inward - but Uzcátegui was starting to put together left hooks & right hands to knock loose the guard and then pelt the signature mustache of the proud Nogalense with straight Gatling-gun fire down the middle.

Uzzy, having edged out to regain the clear lead on points, now began to exert some of that youthful alpha confidence in the fourth, clubbing López down early with a series of hard long-lunging rights on the chin and back of the head (although it would be ruled a slip/push-down by the ref). The strapping Venezuelan would continue to strut in like the cock of the walk, disrespecting the Destroyer's power by wading through his shots to keep lumping on his own. The warrior had no desire to get blown out in front of his townfolk, however, and rallied with his own solid fusillade of lefts crosses after calibrating his aim with some right jab touches by the closing-parenthesis bell.

The young Uzcátegui took his lesson to heart, and decided to box the slower and less nimble López in the fifth. Luring him in with a droning conveyor-belt gait, he would ambush the older man with quick left jabs on the nose, causing it to swell noticeably, and then crack down across his cheek with the hard lashing right. There had been a shift in momentum - a tactical adjustment for which López would need to seek out a miracle to abrogate.

It wasn't to be. The damage to his face, once begun accumulating, increased exponentially, until referee Juan Ramírez implored the ringside physician to have a look midway into the sixth. While it continued, briefly, his well-founded concerns over the state of David's grill would soon be rendered moot, as Bolivita would chop him down with a vicious sequence of hacking rights on the face and uppercuts into the cardiac notch.

It was a tense scene for a moment, as the Destroyer was attended to lying partially beneath the bottom rope. It seemed he may have absorbed just a bit too much damage, although one couldn't point to a preferable moment to have stopped it that Ramírez had somehow missed earlier. He would, however, ultimately get up and exit the ring of his own volition.

A tale as old as time in this sport: the newly forged iron sword cutting through a durable but weathered and dented-up old low-tin bronze shield. A waning and waxing moon in the boxing skyline.

Uzcátegui showed exactly the strengths & weaknesses that would come to define him over the half-decade since: he is patient and heavy-handed, but also can find his gear stick a bit overly fixated in one position for long spells. He would suffer a setback in his very next outing with a loss to Matvey Korobov, and would spend three years rebuilding until his first (interim) world title shot - a frustrating DQ to Andre Dirrell, avenged in a rematch but only after waiting ten months for it. The same time span would elapse before he was able to have a crack at elevating himself to full champion - losing this past January to Caleb Plant. Bolivita's skillset and gifts are enough to generally overcome fringe contenders and teak-tough journeyman of López's ilk, but at that highest tier he is found lacking a certain je ne sais quoi.

As for “El Orgullo de Nogales”, this was his last opportunity to score a big coup and put himself in line for another championship try (now two divisions higher than where he challenged Trout). Within the next fifteen months, López fought twice more and lost a pair of decisions against increasingly more ignominious opposition. Just over two years after that final ring appearance, sadly, he would be dead. Four months shy of his fortieth birthday, in his beloved home of Nogales, he was gunned down at midnight in a mysterious assault on his truck with his 14 year old son as passenger (who, thankfully, survived, but had to bear witness to his father's execution).