Yet Another Champion Is Upset at the Forum as Perez Beats Mendoza

The Forum’s reputation as a disaster area for boxing champions held firm Monday night, as Raul Perez of Tijuana dethroned World Boxing Assn. junior-featherweight champion Luis Mendoza of Colombia.

In the past 11 months, there have been seven title fights at the Forum and the challenger has won six times.

Perez was stepping up from the bantamweight ranks, where he had defended the World Boxing Council’s bantamweight crown eight times before losing it to Greg Richardson at the Forum last February.

Perez, only 24 but with 53 pro fights, engaged the Colombian in a tough, intense fight, but not a terribly exciting one. Mendoza slipped and slid through 12 rounds like a 122-pound Michael Spinks, but lost a split decision.

Two judges had Perez winning by 116-114 and 115-113. The third had Mendoza a 117-111 winner. The Times card favored Perez, 115-113.

In the 10-rounder preceding the main event, Forum flyweight tournament fighters Cecilio Espino of Monterey Park and Abner Barajas of Phoenix staged a “fight of the year” candidate.

Espino and Barajas went at each other with total abandon, particularly in the third and eighth rounds. This one will never wind up in a boxing instruction film library. Neither seemed to entertain a single defensive thought for 10 rounds.

Barajas faltered in the late rounds but his strong early rounds earned him a split decision, 96-92 and 95-94. The third judge had Espino, 96-93.

Perez, who was making $60,000 and $70,000 for his fights in his heyday as the bantamweight king of the Forum, was fighting for a challenger’s purse of $15,000. It was his first bout since the loss in February. He was the WBA’s No. 4 challenger against Mendoza.

Mendoza made $60,000. It was his fifth title defense, having won twice by knockout and twice by decision.

Perez (49-2-2) made the fight for the most part, but never really solved the elusive Mendoza (31-3-2).

Perez, at 5-11, is a tall, skinny fighter who excels at standup boxing, less so at the rough-and-tumble stuff. At close quarters, Mendoza seemed to have an edge throughout.

There were no knockdowns, not even a moment when one man seemed to have the other on the verge of a knockdown. The boos began in the crowd of 5,529 in the seventh round. The only true sustained flurry by both men came in the last 10 seconds of the fight.

Perez said he redeemed himself.

“I proved the Greg Richardson fight was not the real Raul Perez,” said Perez, who cried when he learned he had won.

“I beat a good fighter tonight.”