“OTT Otomí!” Zamora wins third WBC Crown!

The “Roca” nickname may be gone and replaced with ‘Guerrera Otomí’ but at Teatro Moliere in Mexico City, Ibeth Zamora imposed her famed and relentless punch volume output, to win the vacant WBC female flyweight championship via a convincing UD, against a smaller but very game Melisa ‘Mighty’ McMorrow from San Francisco.

The fight topped the bill of Ring Telmex-Telcel’s tenth anniversary Gala. A decade ago, Don Jose Sulaiman and Carlos Slim created the Foundation to nurture, help and develop promising young boxers, funding them on a monthly basis and also teaching them how to save a significant portion of their hard earned pay, as a nest egg for the future. Ibeth is one of those protogees who’s flourished and bloomed so vividly and brilliantly. She’s cracked it!

Very rare that Ibeth is the taller fighter with the longer reach. So using these unaccustomed advantages, she wielded a hard straight left jab to tag the agressive oncoming Melisa, who was landing a few stinging right hook to the head. In round two, Melisa was trying to cut the distance throwing punches from all angles. Her persistence was rewarded when a right uppercut landed, but she then got caught with a long hard straight right.

Astonishingly at the beginning of round three Melisa’s corner had difficutly in finding her mouth guard! “Have you got it?” Ibeth was now standing her ground, and the tactic was not initally successful, as she was getting tagged with right hooks. Ibeth decided to turn on the power punching in round four and this made a telling difference. A very hard left right combination to the head visibly hurt Melisa, and she was getting buffeted by some sinking body shots.

Admirably brave, mostly outgunned, but still dangerous, Melisa cuaght Ibeth with a wide arched left hook at the beginning of round seven, but shipped a lot of punishment thereafter, getting clobbered to the body and head with right hooks. In the eighth Melisa came close to being stopped. She was driven to the ropes and severely punished. Asutely guided by Gabriel Cordero in her corner, Ibeth, Ibeth didn’t go wild. She controlled her sustained attack to sweep the last couple of rounds. She had dominated throughout, beiing ahead as the scores were announced following four and eight rounds.
With this triumph Ibeth Zamora (29-6, 12 KOs) became a three-division world champion. Scores were 98-92, 100-90 and 98-92. The young lady with the beaming smile, outside work hours, who’s rather shy to photographed wearing her glasses, showed focus, tremendous condition and iron determination to become a champion….all over again. One of the Greats!