Calderon to take fight to Mayol early

MANILA, Philippines – WBO light-flyweight champion Ivan “Iron Boy" Calderon plans to take the fight to Filipino challenger Rodel Mayor in the early rounds of their June 13 title fight at the Madison Square Garden in New York. This is so Calderon would pile up enough points in the event he opens another bad wound against Mayol and the shortened fight would have to go to the scorecards like it did during his last fight with Hugo Cazares. “I can not fight with fear of opening a wound but, if anything, I'm going to go out and win the early rounds to take the advantage on the cards if something happens," Boxing Scene reported Calderon as saying, quoting Puerto Rican paper El Nuevo Dia. In August last year, Calderon suffered a deep laceration on his forehead after an accidental head butt with Cazares, the wound so bad it required 43 inches to close. That fight was stopped in the seventh round with the bloodied Puerto Rican winning via technical decision to retain the crown. The 34-year-old champion has not fought since then and he’s now eager to tackle Mayol and possibly set up a unification match with Filipino IBF 108-lb champ Brian “Hawaiian" Punch" Viloria. "After this fight, we can have a great fight against Brian Viloria, which can also be for good money. Moreover, we have history as I fought him three times in the amateurs and he won two of them," Calderon said. Calderon (32-0-0, 6KOs) and Mayol (25-3-0, 19 KOs) will duke it out in in the undercard of the superfight between Miguel Cotto and Joshua Clottey. This will be the third crack at the world crown for the 27-year-old LA-based Cebuano fighter, who lost a 12-round decision to former WBC minimumweight king Eagle Den Junlaphan in 2006 and got knocked out in eight by ex-IBF 108-lb holder Ulises Solis in 2007. –GMANews.TV