I would like to welcome you to the new boxing prospects blog, a blog that continues the work I used to do for Ringnews24.com under the title of “Prospect Scotting”. Due to a series of changes in life and work this blog is effectively taking over from what was, for some of last year, a weekly column talking about a prospect. Unlike last years column however these prospects don't need to have a fight lined up but need to just be a solid, talent prospect. To start this off we'll be looking at a very promising Puerto Rican fighter called Carlos Ivan Velasquez .
Carlos Ivan Velasquez is 26 years old and is unbeaten as a professional in 13 fights with 11 wins by KO. So far he has fought for 39 rounds as a professional with no fights having gone beyond 6 rounds, though has past solid tests already in his short career. Velasquez was a top amateur (more about that later) prior to turning professional in 2007. In his debut he defeated Stephan Arnold in 86 seconds whilst his twin brother and fellow prospect Juan Carlos Velasquez (currently 10-1, 5KO's as a professional) defeated Manuel Angulo over the 4 round disance.
Carlos Ivan would progress quickly as a professional having only 3 fights to ease himself into the professional ranks before facing substantially more experienced fighters. He would stop the tough experienced David Maund, who was difficult to stop despite being a “career loser” (he took a 4-13 record to the ring having been stopped only twice) and face several similar type of opponents. Carlos would prove to be too good for these types of tough men who are expected to test the stamina of prospects. It wasn't until Velasquez fought Manuel Sarabia that the Puerto Rican would hear the final bell. Sarabia had been stopped several times previously though his record going in was 16-24-9 with 11 stoppage losses he was a tough fighter. Sarabia had taken Mickey Garcia the 6 round distance, ending an 8 fight KO streak from the Oxnard man and would go on to take Abner Mares 6 rounds after Velaquez fought him.
Along side Sarabia as men to last the schedule is Juan Nazario (who entered 6-1-1). Nazario recently proved his toughness by going up to Light Welterweight to face Russian Khabib Allakhverdiev and last the distance. Since beating Nazario Velasquez' stock has been on the rise with impressive victories coming in his last two fights. Firstly was the stoppage of Ira Terry (who was 24-2 at the time and had never been stopped). Terry was bullied around by a faster, stronger heavier man in Velasquez who just dominated his opponent and stopped him as shown in the video below. In his last fight Velasquez had 5 round, easy on the eye war with Eduardo Arcos showed that Valeasquez can trade, bang, box and wear opponents down.
As a professional boxrec.com rank Velasquez as the 73rd best Super Featherweight in the world, and the 5th best from Puerto Rico (behind former world champion Roman Martinez, the capable Daniel Jimenez, Martinez's next opponent the unbeaten Luis Cruz and the 2 time title contender Mario Santiago). The IBO's computer ranking system rank him at 43rd in the world at Featherweight, a division that he has never actually made as a professional. He is the 2nd highest ranked Puerto Rican at the weight according to the IBO who rank Luis Cruz at 38th in the world at featherweight.
As well as being a promising professional Velasquez was a very good amateur. He went to the 2004 Athens Olympics as a 20 year old Featherweight and was unlucky to go out to to Edvaldo Oliveira in the round of 32 (on countback of a 43-43 draw). Although the excellent Aleksei Tishchenko would take the gold (and would have almost certainly beaten Velasquez had the two met) Velasquez would prove how good he was over the following years. His stand out amateur highlight was winning gold at the 2006 Central American and Caribbean Games in Cartagena, Colombia. On his route to gold he would defeat Marlon Almagro, Ronald de la Rosa (in the final) and the excellent Yuriorkis Gamboa in the Semi Final. Gamboa had won Flyweight gold in the 2004 Olympics is one of the most talented Featherweights in the world today having won both the WBA and IBF titles as a professional.
Velasquez is certainly one of the most promising and exciting young Puerto Ricans prospects around at the moment and hopefully 2011 will see him building on a great 2010.
