Last time it ended in a controversial decision. This time, both fighters are adamant: it won’t go the distance. “I’ve got a score to settle with Zamora,” says Esmeralda Moreno "(l.)" , whom the judges spurned on that occasion. “This time she’s gonna pay.”

 

Iveth “La Roca” Zamora, who has hometown advantage for tonight’s top-of-the-bill fight for the interim junior flyweight championship of Mexico,  has no interest in a decision either – even a hometown one. She means to dispatch Moreno “as quickly as possible,” she says. “And I have the wherewithal to do it.”

 

After training flat-out for weeks now under the watchful eye of ex-pro and trainer Cruz Zamora (her uncle), the former Golden Gloves champion and 2007 Federal District Newcomer of the Year has no intention of letting slip this opportunity of a crack at Anabel “Avispa” Ortiz and advancing from there into the international domain. But she realizes Moreno won’t make things easy: “She has her dreams too.”

 

Although she’d like it to be sooner, Iveth (sometimes spelt “Ivette”)  is predicting that she will knock Esmeralda out in the fifth round. She even knows what with: “a devastating right.”

 

Ranked fourth going into tonight’s contest in the Salón Romero de San Cristóbal Huichochitlán, Moreno is planning a more leisurely demolition of the number one ranked contender. “Even so,” she warned reporters at the weigh-in, “Zamora won’t survive longer than eight rounds.”

 

The local girl is in for an uncomfortable evening if Moreno gets her way. “I’ll be using my  left hook to the liver; it’s one of my favourite weapons for grinding down opponents,” she says, adding with icy determination: “I can’t wait for the bell to ring. There has to be no doubt I’m the better woman. I’ve got a point to prove.”