SCARBOROUGH TO SAN JUAN
Underdog Meinke has it all to do against Puerto Rican royalty Serrano
★★★★★
WHOLE SHOW
THE remarkable Amanda ‘The Real Deal’ Serrano heads home for the 50th fight of her career and there will be those in Scarborough hoping it all goes wrong for her in Puerto Rico on Saturday night.
Serrano puts her WBA, IBF and WBO 126lbs titles on the line against fellow southpaw Nina Meinke, 18-3 (4), over 12-threes in a fight screened by DAZN and promoted by Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions (MVP).
From Germany, Meinke learned to box at Westway Amateur Boxing Club while studying in Scarborough as a teenager, winning seven of her 10 bouts and reaching a Youth final, losing to Charley Davison.
Davison is currently preparing for her second Olympics, in Paris this summer, while Meinke makes her second bid to become a ‘world’ champion, in front of an estimated 19,000 crowd at the Coliseo Jose Miguel Agrelot in San Juan.
In April 2022, Meinke was outpointed by Denmark’s Sarah Mahfoud in a bid for the IBF featherweight title. That result gives a possible formline to this weekend’s fight because, five months later, Mahfoud lost the belt to Serrano.
Serrano, 46-2-1 (30), lost three rounds on two of the cards, surely in the second half. She was dominant early with her body attacks before getting comfortable after it became clear Mahfoud didn’t have the punch to trouble her. There were whispers afterwards that Serrano was possibly in decline.
It was her first fight since that gruelling split points loss to Katie Taylor – another common opponent – up at 135lbs and the suspicion was, that fight may have taken something out of Serrano. Subsequent showings have exposed such views as mere conjecture.
She unanimously outpointed Mexican southpaw Erika Cruz Hernandez to gain the fourth belt at 126lbs, then repeated a points win over 41-year-old Heather Hardy, and last time out scored a shutout points win over 38-year-old Brazilian Danila Ramos.
Serrano vacated the WBC belt in a protest measure when the sanctioning body refused to approve her fight with Ramos over 12 three-minute rounds. The WBC insists women’s title fights be conducted over 10-twos. Serrano-ramos was the first women’s fight to scheduled for the 36-minute distance, but the longer format didn’t appear to affect Serrano. She took a couple of rounds to ease into the fight before she set about walking Ramos down and unloading combinations.
Serrano actually went up a gear in the uncharted 11th and 12th rounds and finished the fight having thrown 1,103 punches.
Meinke has never gone beyond 10-twos before in her 21-fight pro career. That followed around 70 amateur bouts. Serrano, meanwhile, has done most of her fighting in the pro ring, turning over as a 20-year-old back in 2009.
Saturday will be her 20th ‘world’ title fight and for all her success, Serrano is surely best known for the loss to Taylor. Their rematch was pencilled in for May and then Serrano was ruled out through injury, giving Chantelle Cameron a chance that she took. Serrano hasn’t given up on facing Taylor again.
Meinke, stopped in seven by Taylor in April 2017, looks to have it all to do.
Though she says she always trains threeminute rounds, we doubt she can stay with Serrano.
Serrano, presuming that post-taylor slump was indeed an aberration, could get a late stoppage.
The build-up to the show included a media sparring session between Serrano and Jonathan ‘Bomba’ Gonzalez, who makes his third defence of the WBO lightflyweight belt, against fellow Puerto Rican Rene Santiago, 12-3 (9).
The 32-year-old Gonzalez, 27-3-1 (14), is a patient southpaw punch-picker who looks comfortable on the back foot – and that’s where Santiago is sure to put him. Santiago has nine early wins, including a last-round knockout of Kevin Vivas last time out, a hard jab to the body leaving the Nicaraguan on his knees. Gonzalez has been stopped three times and Santiago has the power to stop him as well, but we fancy the champion to poke away from the outside and dodge the bombs coming at him to win on points.
The improving Jake Paul [pictured inset], 8-1 (5), who flattened the limited Andre August with a right uppercut last time out, should be too sharp for limited 35-year-old Ryan Bourland, 17-2 (6).
THE VERDICT Serrano set to delight her fans with a welcome homecoming performance.