In an interview with Boxeo Colombiano  on Monday, Maria Andrea Miranda ("The Panther of Moñitos") expressed satisfaction with her performance in Oberhausen, although her attempt to wrest the WIBF featherweight title from 26-year-old Ina Menzer on Saturday evening ended in failure: "I don't feel like a loser," she said. "After all, the only way to win when you're fighting abroad is to score a knockout."

Asked about the wide margin on the scorecards between Menzer, who was born in Kazakhstan but now lives in Mönchengladbach, and herself,  the Colombian replied: "Those were the judges' verdicts, and I have to accept them. They were always going to favour Menzer, obviously, because she was the local fighter. No way were they going to let me walk away with the belt if they could possibly prevent it."

The 22-year-old seemed to draw some consolation in defeat from the mess she'd made of the champion's once beautiful face: "I left her in a bad way: I broke her nose and split her cheek in two places – above and below the cheekbone. Even she admitted during the press conference afterwards that it was the most difficult fight of her career and that she'd never been hit like that before."

It should be pointed out that Menzer began the TV interview after the fight by claiming that none of the injuries to her face was caused by a punch. Whether or not that's true, what is  undeniable is that in the course of the fight she herself was warned once, and the Colombian several times, for not keeping her head up;  though the rule violation on each occasion may have been accidental.

Menzer was down in the sixth, but the referee ruled it a slip;  a decision that exasperated Miranda: "I stuck her with the jab and she fell on her 'ass' (as they say in the vernacular);  but instead of counting, the referee helped her back to her feet! I lost motivation at that point; it took the wind out of my sails. And how could they just let her bleed like that without even asking the doctor to take a look at her? There were one or two decisions up there that left me flabbergasted. Demoralized me as well.

"I finished strongly, but I recognize, and I'm sincere when I say this: I lacked aggression. I have to be a bit more aggressive."

A point Miranda didn't make, but which Boxeo Colombiano made for her in its report on the weigh-in, is that the young Colombian, a natural super bantamweight, was giving away over 2 kilos to the WIBF featherweight champion. Not Menzer's fault, of course, but something that perhaps explains why the tall Colombian seemed hopelessly outgunned against the hard-hitting Kazakh.

Yesterday, Miranda returned to her native town, Moñitos in Córdoba, accompanied by her trainer and manager, Jaime Díaz, to relax for a few days and recharge her batteries.

[Sources: Boxeo Colombiano, ZDF ]

[Photo: Boxeo Colombiano]

Menzer and Miranda at the weigh-in Foto by Marianne Müller