JUAN MANUEL LOPEZ vs ROGERS MTAGWA

After five consecutive blowouts inside three rounds, perhaps it was all to the good that Juan Manuel Lopez found himself extended to nine rounds in his last two fights. Each time Lopez’s opponents were pulled out by their compassionate trainers before the start of the 10th. These fights were good experience for the popular Puerto Rican, reminding Lopez that not everyone he meets will quickly succumb to his punching power.

A long fight isn’t expected, however, when Lopez defends his WBO junior featherweight title against Rogers Mtagwa in the main event on Saturday’s Island Warriors: Latin Fury 12 show at the Madison Square Garden theatre.

Lopez’s last two opponents, Gerry Penalosa and Olivier Lontchi, were durable and difficult to stop — Penalosa showed an amazing chin and courage to match, while Lontchi has a tight defence that isn’t easy to penetrate.

Saturday’s fight is a little different, because while Mtagwa is very game and tough he has always been an aggressive, slugging sort, so eager to land heavy punches that his defence sometimes verges on the nonexistent.

At the age of 30, Mtagwa isn’t likely to change too much. The Philadelphia-domiciled fighter from Tanzania in East Africa knows how to box but can't resist getting involved in a fight.

Mtagwa's hard-hitting, big-hearted style has seen him through to some rousing wins, but he has taken a considerable amount of punishment along the way.

Even when he is expected to win comfortably, Mtagwa has been involved in wars. This is what happened in his last fight, when he won a unanimous decision over Ricardo Medina, a 38-year-old trial horse with 33 losses on his record. Mtagwa won by a wide margin on the scorecards but it was apparently a gruelling fight — “solid action”, as ringsider Jack Obermayer described it to me — with both boxers cut and bloodied.

I have the sense that, after an honourable career in which he has provided more than his share of blood-and-guts excitement, Mtagwa is starting to wear out. He was dropped and almost stopped by Tomas Villa in the ninth round of their war last November, rallying to floor his opponent three times for a dramatic victory in the last round. Fights such as this take a toll.

Lopez is seen as Puerto Rico’s next superstar. The hard-hitting southpaw has it all — speed, skill and power. Mtagwa deserves to be in a big fight such as this after having consistently given good value over the years, but I see him as being overmatched and outgunned on Saturday.

There is, I suppose, a chance that Mtagwa will try to shuffle the deck with a moving, jabbing method, but he doesn’t have the speed to employ this sort of style effectively for very long against a stronger, faster fighter such as Lopez. It just seems inevitable that Mtagwa will get caught and hurt, possibly quite early in the fight, and once Lopez begins to unload his combinations I don’t think the end will be too far away.

This is by far the biggest fight of Mtagwa’s life and he will give it all he has, but I think he is the perfect opponent to make Lopez look very good indeed. I’m expecting a Lopez stoppage win in about six rounds.