The main event on tonight’s Perfume de Nocaut card in Mexico City pitting Sandra Hernández, making her first defence of the national flyweight title she won in May, against ex world champion Mariana Juárez has aroused “an unusual amount of interest,” writes J. Arturo Contreras in today’s Box Noticias. “It’s the classic confrontation: experience against youth, skill against strength.” Age, he feels, will play an important part. “Sandra will admit to twenty-three years, whilst Mariana’s lips are sealed; some records suggest over thirty.”

 

Twenty-eight, according to Esto, which like most journals today makes ‘The Golden Girl’, once described as ‘the female de la Hoya’, the clear favourite. Juárez [14(8)-5-3] was robbed, by her own account, of the world championship in Korea back in 2005 by a referee who stopped the fight when she was in no distress whatsoever and leading by a wide margin on the scorecards. Be that as it may, it’s an injury to the tendons of her left shoulder that’s been hampering her since. She profited from the enforced break from boxing to have a baby, a little girl called Daphne, and now that she has, as she puts it, “someone to fight for”, she promises to be that much more determined. That bodes ill for her rivals in the flyweight division, because despite her Barbie-doll image (“of her 50 kilos, the braids alone must account for 500 grams!” says Contreras), Mariana Juárez was as hard as nails before.

 

“I know all about her,” says Sandra Hernández, “and she doesn’t impress me. I put my faith in my fists. No one rated my chances when I fought ‘La Pelusa’ (Gabriela González) either but I saw her off. Against Suárez, I’ll prove I’m not champion by accident.”

 

Hernández has “tremendous hand-speed”, or so she says. “That will make things difficult for Juárez; and although perhaps my three professional fights may not sound much, in the amateur division I had 54, 46 of which I won, losing only 8, and there I do have the advantage. She had only three fights as an amateur; I was the Golden Gloves champion.

 

“Whilst it will certainly be a very hard fight, it won’t end in a knockout,” says Hernández, “because we’ve boxed before and know each other, and we’ll avoid getting hit where it hurts.”

 

Suárez disagrees. “I respect Sandra,” she told journalists yesterday. “If she’s the champion, then it’s for a reason, but I’m going to beat her. And I think the fight will end in a knockout.”

 

Waiting for the women to mount the scales at yesterday’s weigh-in, journalists were treated to the incongruous spectacle of Juárez helping her young opponent fix her hair. “The men usually scowl at each other,” commented an astonished La Afición. These two were grooming like chimps.

 

But whilst it’s hard to gauge the intensity of the ex world champion’s desire to return to the top flight – she’s been shying away from interviews -- there’s been no mistaking the fierce ambition of her young opponent. This all means everything to her and she makes no secret of the fact. She wants this win. She wants an international career. She wants to be taken seriously. “If I can succeed in defeating an ex world champion,” she told Contreras on Saturday, “my career will really take off!”

 

The widespread assumption this week is that it won’t; that it’s going to explode on the launching pad; that Mariana Juárez has too much going for her: too much talent, too much experience, too great an advantage in terms of reach. Maybe so. But whatever she has, she’ll have to bring it; because there’s no way she can take Sandra Hernández’s title without breaking her heart in the process.