Small and powerful, the light minimumweight world champion of the World Boxing Association, Montserrat Alarcón, returns to the ring this Friday October 30 in an eight-round fight in the minimum division after the approval of the president of the organization Gilberto Mendoza.
The event will take place in the Aztec lands with one of the objectives set to promote equal opportunities, and therefore it will be a female-only boxing event.
Montserrat told us that this year she had a fight scheduled for February, which was postponed until it was finally suspended due to the world health emergency: “I haven’t stopped training at all. The first two months I trained at home doing some exercises but I didn’t have all the equipment. So then I resumed training at the José Luis Bueno’s gym -Bueno Boxing Gym-. I was training behind closed doors, alone, and by the time the gyms here in Mexico began to reopen up a little, we started working with the physical trainer, going out for a run and getting ready in case any opportunity came up”.
“Although I am a world champion now, I do not have a company that supports me 100%, we work as the proposals come and we were waiting for one. We had to be prepared. Three weeks ago I was offered to fight in a show organized by Chiquita Boxing which is managed by former champion Humberto Chiquita Gonzalez together with his sons, and they gave me the possibility to be part of the boxig card”.
“On this occasion, I will not defend the belt because due to the pandemic, it’s very difficult for companies now to cover all the expenses of a world title, for boxers to be ready at 100% for a world title fight, and even more in my case since I have been inactive for more than a year, which we hope will not affect us at all. This time we will return in an eight-round fight in the minimumweight with the approval of WBA President Gilberto Mendoza, who has given us the green light for this October 30th”.
This is a great opportunity to lubricate the body to return to boxing and then await a new defense or new challenges after being crowned on August 31, 2018 against Mayela Perez: “I am very excited about returning to the ring. Whenever I have a fight it fills me with joy, it motivates me a lot to know that I am about to return to the ring. I always train with the mentality that my opponent is the strongest in the world, the toughest, the challenge I have in front of me is the most important challenge of my career. I train with that mentality so that on the day of the fight I can get it all out”.
Montserrat knows that her opponents are always motivated, anxious to take advantage of the opportunity to face a world champion: “I know that she comes very strong, she is preparing at full strength. For the same reason, I also have to push the engines and never get overconfident. I think the fight is won from the moment you enter the gym and we are doing a good job with the entire team of Bueno Boxing. I always try to learn day by day because in this environment that should never end”.
In September 2019 Montserrat traveled for the second time to Japan: “Going to my opponents’ home is something that motivates me a lot, I don’t feel pressure when I’m not at home, I just go focused on winning. Thank God I managed to win and unify titles with the interim champion at that time, Ayaka Miyao, the strongest and most complete fighter I have fought in my 13 years as a boxer. A girl who knows how to box, counterpunch, knows many tricks of the ring, and is very intelligent”.
But that was not an easy trip: “on that occasion I felt we were left completely alone as soon as we arrived in Japan. Thank God my team had traveled to Tokyo before and as soon as we arrived we started looking for places to train and eat, for example. It took us a bit of work to adapt to the very humid weather, in the first two days I lost a lot of weight; the light minimum division is 46,200 kg and I was at 45 kg so I kept eating without being able to gain weight. But the work strategy was the total key to that fight, since it was very difficult to break and not fall into the boxing of a fighter as complete as Miyao. My name wasn’t even on the boxing card even though I was the champion and she was the challenger. From then they started to fight us mentally so we worked without caring about the others”.
Raya started training at the age of 13 thanks to her two brothers, Alex and Edgard, who had joined through her maternal grandfather Tony Raya who had been a boxer: “They don’t do it anymore so I am the only boxer in the family. As a child I watched them leave with their bag to the gym until one day I asked them to take me with them so that I would not be left alone at home with my mom. I decided to start training and a month later I did my first amateur fight. For me it’s a whole lifestyle”.
Montserrat made 51 amateur fights of which she only lost 9 and among the several important tournaments in Mexico she participated in the Golden Gloves, where she became champion as she was at national level in 2008. “Then I decided to jump to professional in 2012 because there were not many girls so I had to fight 60 kg boxers”.
With the pride of wearing the World Boxing Association belt, Montserrat Alarcón expresses with emotion that “it is very motivating to be the first Mexican champion in the light minimum division. Currently there are many girls wanting to lose weight to fight in the category, but when I started everyone asked me when that category had been invented”, and she says she is ready for this October 30th.
