ANTONIO ESCALANTE W10 MIGUEL ROMAN

When fights are incredibly exciting they make you realise why you became addicted to boxing in the first place. Antonio Escalante against Miguel Roman on Friday Night Fights was one such bout. This featherweight 10-rounder was one of the most amazing fights I have seen in a long time for its intensity, commitment, courage and ferocity.

Escalante was a worthy winner and the unanimous decision in his favour was not in doubt. I thought he had Roman on the verge of being stopped when he hammered him to the body in the seventh round. When Roman went down from an accumulation of punches late in round eight I thought that the end might be near but, no, Roman rallied to win the ninth with a bruising, all-out attack.

Each fighter hurt the other. The boxers’ boyhood rivalry from Juarez, Mexico, when they scuffled on the street, was carried over into the ring in El Paso, where Escalante now lives. Escalante had the superior skills and he landed the bigger shots but Roman, thickset and tenacious, absorbed the blows and kept ploughing forward, doing damage whenever he could.

The fight raged from one side of the ring to the other. Escalante looked wobbly at times but showed ring savvy by getting on his bicycle before surging back onto the offensive, and he was clever at sliding away from the ropes when Roman tried to pin him down. It was breathtaking, almost unbearably exciting, and one wonders if Roman can be quite the same fighter after the punishment he absorbed — but this border war might have taken something out of Escalante, too. I doubt if I will see a better fight than this for the remainder of 2010 — bigger fights, yes, but not many that will be able to match it for sheer, sustained, give-and-take action.