By Ian S Palmer
The vacant WBC Fecarbox Super Featherweight title is on the line in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico this Saturday, February 10th when Miguel Roman of Mexico takes on Aristides Perez of Colombia. Roman hasn’t had much time off as he was last in the ring in December when he put on an impressive display by stopping fellow countryman Orlando Salido in the ninth round of an entertaining brawl. Aristides last fought in October when he stopped Alex Barrios in the fourth round.
Roman is just 32 years old, but he’s already fought 70 bouts since turning pro at the age of 17 in 2003 and has 435 rounds of experience under his belt. He stands 5-feet-5-inches tall with a 66.5-inch reach. Roman enters the contest with a record of 58-12 with 45 big Kos. He’s been stopped just twice in his 12 losses so has a great chin. He also has good power with a knockout ratio of 64 per cent. Roman’s an exciting fighter with a fan-friendly style who doesn’t mind going toe-to-toe with his opponents.
Even though he’s been beaten 12 times, Roman has lost just twice in his last 21 bouts, which were to Takashi Miura by 12th-round stoppage in January of 2017 and to Dante Jordan by 12-round unanimous decision in 2012. Roman’s also been beaten by Antonio DeMarco, Javier Fortuna, Jonathan Barros, Antonio Escalante, Miguel Beltran Jr., Fernando Beltran, Eduardo Escobedo, Jorge Solis, Genaro Garcia and Michael Domingo with DeMarco being the only other foe to stop him.
Roman has wins over Salido, Edgar Puerta, Ricardo Castillo, Daniel Ponce DeLeon, Juan Carlos Salgado, Cesar Soto and Tyrone Harris. While he’s a fine boxer who likes to mix things up, he’s usually fallen just short when stepping up in class, but that wasn’t the case against Salido. He likes to throw as many punches as possible and doesn’t mind taking a shot or two to land one of his own. He’s looking for an impressive win here to vault himself back into world title contention.
The veteran Perez is 36 years old and he’ll climb into the ring with a mark of 31-10-2 along with 17 Kos. He’s 5-feet-6-inches tall with a 67-inch reach, so has a slight inch disadvantage in height and a negligible edge in reach. He turned pro back in 2006 and has boxed 227 rounds since then. He doesn’t really have much in the way of power with a current knockout ratio of 40 per cent. In addition, his chin is obviously questionable since he’s been stopped on five occasions.
Perez’s stoppage defeats were at the hands of Salido, William Silva, Jhonny Gonzalez, Eduardo Escebedo and Humberto Soto. However, Salido’s the only man to stop him since 2010 when Perez retired on his stool after the seventh round last May. His two career draws were against Francisco Javier Perez and Deibys Gonzalez and were a six-round technical and eight-round affairs respectively. Perez has faced plenty of stiff opposition over the years, but the problem is he’s lost each time when stepping up in class.
Prediction…
Give Perez credit for taking on top-class opponents, but his lack of power and unsteady chin won’t do him any favours with a hard hitter like Roman. In fact Roman’s confidence should be sky high at the moment after stopping Salido and he should do the same here against Perez on Saturday night.
