If your name’s Guggenheim, they might name a museum or a theatre after you. If it’s Loly, the most you can hope for, I gather, is a cattle shed, but for Loly “Sugar” Muñoz, after Saturday night’s showing in the Pabellón Francisco Calvo, it could be a palatial one; a Gaudi job, I expect, with coloured tiles everywhere, – Neuschwanstein in a fairground mirror – because with Real winning 7-0 and Barca managing only a draw, the city of Barcelona needed cheering up this weekend and Loly certainly gave it something to cheer.
 

Topping the bill against a stubborn opponent, Maria Dimitrova of Bulgaria, who came with a record of 10 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses, and aspirations – like herself – to a European title, Muñoz put the disappointment of the Kuehne fight behind her, establishing over the course of six rounds a clear, and ultimately absolute, ascendancy, and sending the Bulgarian home with her tail between her legs.
 

“She had come,” wrote Rafa Martín for Contra las Cuerdas, “to make life difficult for Loly; and she did so. I believe nonetheless it was Loly who dominated the fight from beginning to end, but with a Maria always present, now looking for openings, now charging forward, letting rip with both hands whenever the occasion presented itself.”
 

She had her best moments in the fourth round, a tremendous one for both fighters that had spectators on their feet chanting “Loly, Loly”, but by the end of the fifth, she was a spent force, “saved” writes Martín, “only by the bell”.
 

During the break, the Bulgarian appeared to recover and came out fresh for the sixth and final round, but Sugar, she was to discover, is not half as sweet as she’d perhaps heard tell: a tremendous straight right from the Catalan half way through the round “knocked her for six”, as one report had it, though that ought to read “ten”. 
 

Either way it was Goodnight Vienna. Or, in this case, Bucharest.

Date: 2008-02-09

Venue: Pabellón Francisco Calvo, Barcelona

(6 x 2 min at 61 kg)

Red corner: Loly (Loli) “Sugar” Muñoz (KO Verdún, Barcelona)

Blue corner: Maria Dimitrova (Bulgaria)

Winner: Muñoz by KO (Round 6)