For a decade or so, Ivan Calderon has ruled the tiniest weight classes, the last several years by skating on the edge of disaster only to tap his reserves of exceptional skill to compensate for slowing speed and non-existent power. Last year, Giovani Segura knocked him out to end his junior flyweight reign. Saturday night, on Integrated Sports pay-per-view, Segura defended his junior flyweight lineal championship in a way that put a definitive exclamation point on the end of Calderon’s tiny dominance.
Calderon won the 1st round the way he won all the others for so many years: movement, defense, a great jab, southpaw excellence and an ability to absorb what punches landed. He couldn’t win the rest Saturday, in much the same way Segura won the initial bout between these two in a Fight of the Year candidate in 2010. Segura is a brute, but maybe the best of all the brutes. Confronted with an opponent who could not be dissuaded, Calderon wilted last year, and in 2011, nearly a year older, he wilted faster, this time succumbing in the 3rd under a withering body attack.
Calderon is almost certainly done as a top pound-for-pound fighter.
Segura? He might only be just beginning. Next could be a barnstorming run at flyweight, where he could perhaps face lineal champ Pongsaklek Wonjongkam. Whatever Segura does next, you’d be wise not to miss it. He might not outweigh the neighborhood midget, but his heart is heavyweight-sized, his wilingness to brawl practically Arturo Gatti-sized, and his can’t-miss quotient a straight 10 point 0.
