Boxeo Colombia is perfectly
categorical: María Andrea Miranda is "the best boxer in
Colombia". It's right up there on the home page, in the top-left
hand corner; where the stamp would be if you looked through a
mirror. And how good is she? It tells you that too: 10-1-0 with
5 KOs. Not half bad.
It's that "1", though, that rankles.
The defeat she suffered last time she ventured abroad. Apart
from that one occasion, Miranda – a sort-of super-slim Halle
Berry, who calls herself "The Panther of Moñitos" – has never
fought outside Colombia, which she rules with a rod of iron; and
where the typical challenger is a Ming vase.
She put down
the most recent uprising, for example, in ten seconds. The
challenger before that took 5 punches and lay down. The Cordoban
Francia Helena Bravo, whom she'd confronted in Valledupar six
weeks earlier, had managed some resistance, but even she had
succumbed as early as the second round.
Things hadn't been quite as
easy in the beginning: in her first seven wins there were only 2
KOs; but still no split decision. By January 2005, she had added
the South American belt to her collection, and was ready to
conquer the world.
The world title at the time was in
the hands of the Argentinian, Marcela Acuña of Formosa, and
Acuña elected, exceptionally, to defend it in her home town. It
was to Formosa, then, that Miranda flew to confront her. To
Formosa: her Waterloo.
Miranda still hasn't forgiven Acuña
for what happened that night. It was over two years ago now, but
it still rankles: "they may admire her in her own country, but
to me she isn't a boxer," she was ranting, only the other day.
She is – (her whole being is) –, as she put it, "crying
out for revenge".
There's an
account of that fight knocking around here somewhere on the
site, and I won't rehash it other than to add one detail that
emerged from a subsequent report: since it was the third
knockdown and therefore automatically a TKO, the "magisterial"
uppercut with which Acuña put an end to (I expect) the worst
beating she's ever given anyone in fact knocked Miranda out.
Noticias Formosa describes her lying on the ring apron,
without reacting (adds Clarín), while doctors
attended to her. And Acuña, with her blood suddenly freezing –
forgetting, perhaps, that Miranda was the Latin American
champion and that this was a compulsory defence – may have
remembered the shy, gangling teenager that had flown, almost
alone, into Formosa five days earlier, telling reporters God
would protect her, and asked with self-loathing:
"What on earth have I done?"
"Next to a
battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained."
But I don't see, with hindsight,
what else she could reasonably be expected to have done. Miranda
was trying to quit without being seen to do so. That, at
least, was how ringside observers saw it. She was on the canvas
after the second knockdown – "prostrate before a queen" said
La Mañana – with her eyes imploring her corner to throw
in the towel; but they either didn't notice or weren't disposed
to comply. So she stood up. But she didn't have to. And Marcela
-- still in the zone, pulse racing, primed with adrenaline, and
fleeing, herself, before an avalanche of expectation (defending
a world title… in her home town… in a sold-out stadium… in the
main event, and on live television) -- did what any champion
would have done.
Perhaps that's not Miranda's beef,
though. She makes no real argument for her rage, so perhaps it's
deeper. Perhaps she learned from Acuña something she'd have
preferred never to have known.
One is bound to point out,
then, that one moment of panic is very little in a lifetime. But
all the same. People live by their own standards, not the
standards others prescribe. And if she wants to maintain the
almost impossibly high standard she seems to have set herself –
to match the courage of Jazmín Rivas, for example, last week
–, when she climbs into the ring to face Ina Menzer in
Oberhausen tomorrow, the grail of redemption will be before her;
and perhaps, even, within her grasp.
*
Venue:
König Pilsener Arena, Oberhausen (Germany)
Date: 28th
April
WIBF
Featherweight Championship
Ina Menzer of
Germany (holder) against María Andrea Miranda of Colombia
The fight will
be recorded and
televised by ZDF (Astra
satellite) after Sturm v Castillo and Stipe Drews v Silvio
Branco (if the current schedule is respected).
[The entire
programme begins at 23:00 and ends at 01:00 CET]
[Sources:
Boxeo Colombia, Fabox, Clarin, La Voz del
Interior, La Capital, La Nacion, El Comercial, (Osvaldo
Príncipi) La Mañana]
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