Celeste Alaniz, nicknamed ‘Chucky’ after the red-headed killer doll from the Child’s Play horror movie and TV franchise, drew her thumb across her throat while glaring menacingly into the cameras after the face-off at Friday’s weigh-in while Marlen Esparza looked on bemused, holding up her hands and wiggling her fingers with lips pursed and eyes wide in mock fear.
“I’ve never been afraid of Chucky. It’s just a doll,” Esparza said dismissively. She showed no fear of the WBO champion who refers to herself as ‘Chucky’ last night at the AT&T Center in San Antonio either, charging out of her corner to unleash a right-hand haymaker followed by two quick left hooks as she came head to head with Alaniz at the opening bell of their flyweight unification fight.
Esparza has been known to confuse ruthless aggression with reckless aggression in the past, as she did in a costly manner against Ibeth Zamora from which she thankfully recovered, and could ill-afford to make the same mistake with the power-punching Argentinian.
Alaniz, who was making her US debut, is very comfortable with the fast pace that was established in the first five seconds and let up only rarely throughout the remainder of the fight. With six stoppages in fourteen outings, a high-volume output would play into Celeste’s hands while lingering doubts about Esparza’s conditioning left the inquiring spectator to wonder whether Marlen could maintain or indeed withstand the pressure.
With this in mind, Esparza was wisely cautioned by her corner after the frantic round one to settle down and box behind her jab. This she did quite successfully, fighting off the back foot and using expert head movement to slip and slide away from the herky-jerky Alaniz, whose punch count exceeded Marlen’s with the reverse holding true for the boxers’ individual connect rates throughout the fight.
Like her Child’s Play namesake, ‘Chucky’ Alaniz could be held at arm’s length and kept from drawing blood for only so long, closing the distance with her swarming onslaught and opening a cut over Esparza’s left eye in round four.
Every round commenced the same way, with a Texas-style showdown at knuckle junction. Alaniz tried her best to drag Esparza into a back alley brawl while Marlen, something of a banger herself even if her KO ratio says otherwise, was out to prove that she could go toe to toe with the tough Argentine.
Maybe not the most advantageous strategy for Esparza to adopt, although she can’t seem to help herself and Alaniz was leaving few options but to stand in place, bite down, and trade blow for blow when jabbing, punching in quick, crisp combinations, attacking the body, and getting out of Dodge before having hellfire rained down upon her was a far more effective tactic, and one which ultimately won Marlen the fight.
It was clear from the outset even to the untrained eye that, barring knockdowns or a drastic momentum shift one way or the other, determining a clear cut winner of this fight would be a difficult and unenviable task. Nevertheless, that is precisely what the ringside judges are paid to do.
Lisa Giampa had the contest dead even at 95 apiece, while Esther Lopez scored the bout for Esparza by a reasonable enough 96-93 margin. A resident Texan and no stranger to questionable decision making, Javier Alvarez should be ashamed of, and investigated for, the egregious show of generosity he displayed toward the hometown boxer with the 99-91 tally he somehow arrived at in favor of Esparza. Setting Alvarez’s incompetence aside, Marlen successfully defended her WBC, WBA, and Ring magazine belts while adding Alaniz’s WBO strap to her collection.
Now 14-1 and possessing all but one of the world flyweight titles (Arely Mucino’s IBF belt) necessary to claim undisputed status, Esparza keeps racking up victories and championship belts if not the proper respect typically accorded with doing so.
She certainly gets none from Seniesa Estrada. There is no love lost between the two for the sheer fact that there was never any there to begin with. Estrada, who puts her WBC and WBA 105-pound titles on the line against Leonela Paola Yudica in less than three weeks and handed Marlen her only loss to date by way of a blood-drenched technical decision four years ago, had this to say after her sworn enemy’s victory via Twitter: “Tell her that my scrawny ass will move up in weight again to beat her fat ass again.”
With Marlen Esparza and Arely Mucino both fighting under the Golden Boy promotional banner, you would have to imagine that the undisputed match between the two stablemates would be the top priority, not to mention easy enough, for Oscar De La Hoya to put together. Once that feat is accomplished, there’s no doubt that Estrada vs. Esparza 2 is easily one of women’s boxing’s biggest money-makers on the horizon.
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