For the vacant WBC super flyweight title

	Ana María Torres ("La Guerrera de Neza")	Mayela Pérez ("La Cobrita")
Titles	NABF super flyweight Mexican bantamweight	none
Record (Source: Notimex)	13-2-1 (9 KOs)	7-4-1 (6 KOs)
Weight	52.2 kg	51.9 kg
Age	26	23
Place of birth	Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl (Mexico)	Saltillo (Mexico)
Trainer	Miguel "Ratón" González	Oscar Soberón
Manager	Jacobo Ríos	Héctor Sánchez

Date:	7th October 2006 (topping the 'Mar de Campiones Fidelidad 2006' bill)
Venue:	Museo del Transporte y Exposiciones, Xalapa, Veracruz (Mexico)
Weight:	-52.2 kg
Rounds:	10 (x 2 mins)
Promoter:	Boxeo de Gala (Dr Fausto Daniel García)
Referee:	Guadalupe García

Mongoose and cobra  

"In boxing, style nullifies brute force," Mayela Pérez told Ana María Torres on Tuesday; and on Saturday, in front of nine former world champions (and the state governor to boot), Torres rammed the words right back down her throat. Contrary to her blithe expectations, the woman from Saltillo found herself up against a far more skilful opponent, who confounded her in all departments before peremptorily blowing her away. "It isn't wise to spit upwards," points out Ramiro González in today's La Opinión. "Eventually, it falls back into your face."  

(Doesn't normally take four days, though). 

Pérez was fast, and brave, and fully fit – she'd have fought the same night in Canada, if Torres's scheduled opponent hadn't been injured – but in terms of ring generalship, Torres was far superior. From the opening gambit to the devastating combination that left her out on her feet in the sixth, Mayela was outthought and outfought, losing her way in the ring on occasion, and getting trapped, despite her speed, several times on the ropes. "I'll make her fight me at close quarters, " she had boasted beforehand, "where she'll feel the venom of my fists. I won't give her any room"; but despite her energetic weaving, she was caught too often on the way in; and when she stayed back, Torres could invade her space with impunity, hurt her, and move away again before the shorter woman could strike - a mongoose to Mayela's cobra; and no more pitiless rivalry exists. 

The pattern was interrupted, briefly, in the third, when their animosity may have got the better of them, and they went at it, hammer and tongs; but the rest of the time, there was a marked contrast between Torres, the more technically accomplished, and, of course, the more experienced, of the two fighters, and her opponent, whom at times she made to seem little better than a brawler.  

And there was a further difference, perhaps of greater consequence: "Mayela Pérez is a very fast fighter," conceded Torres, "but she doesn't hit very hard." Her arms were thicker but softer – "I'd rather see her at junior flyweight" commented Javier "Zorrito" Altamirano afterwards – and she doesn't set herself in a way that permits her to punch her weight. 

Torres does; which is why when she breaks through, it's decisive: Pérez took several shots to the face in the sixth in quick succession, followed — before she could recover — by a fulminating straight right; and she was at her mercy.  

"Fulminated" –  ("as though struck by lightning") - that was the word one paper used; and though lightning, theoretically, never strikes twice in the same place, referee Guadalupe García wasn't about to put that theory to the test. 

[Torres by referee's stoppage, 1 min 40 secs into the sixth] 

(Sources: Esto, Yahoo Mexico, El Diario de Xalapa, Box Noticias, La Opinión, La Ofición)