Former junior middleweight (154 pounds) champion, Sergio Mora, was cut over the left eye from a sixth-round punch, as well as over the right eye from a seventh-round clash of heads, and generally out-worked and out-punched during Friday night's super middleweight (168 pounds) non-title, split-decision, upset loss to Bryan Lee Vera at the Convention Center in Fort Worth, Tex.
The 29-year-old Vera (18-5, 11 knockouts), of Austin, Tex., won by scores of 96-94 on the cards of Jesse Reyes and Erwin Sparks, while Brock Groom had it for the 30-year-old Mora (22-2-2, six KOs) of Los Angeles by the same score.
Mora was coming off of September's disputed, split-decision draw with 39-year-old three-division, five-time titlist Shane Mosley (46-6-1, 39 KOs), who was unbeaten before twice losing his WBC welterweight (147 pounds) belt to the late, 6-foot tall, Vernon Forrest (41-3, 29 KOs) in January and July of 2002.
Mora split his pair of match ups with Forrest, dethroning him for the WBC junior middleweight belt to improve to 21-0-1 with a majority decision in June 2008, then losing that crown in their return bout three months later by a one-sided, unanimous decision.
Mora is 1-2-1 in his last four bouts.
Vera was slated for a Nov. 13, Top Rank Promotions clash opposite former WBO and WBC middleweight (160 pounds) champion, Kelly Pavlik (36-2, 32 KOs), of Youngstown, Ohio, at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium before Pavlik pulled out of the bout and checked into The Betty Ford clinic for problems with alcohol.
A former member of "The Contender" reality series, Vera had lost four of his past five fights, and was coming off of September's unanimous decision loss to Maksym Bursak.
Vera was once-beaten before scoring a seventh-round knockout in March of 2008 to upset previously unbeaten southpaw Andy Lee (24-1, 18 KOs), and then, lost his next three fights.
In succession, Vera was knocked out in the eighth round of an October, 2008, loss to James Kirkland (25-0, 22 KOs), before suffering consecutive losses in May of 2009, and, February of 2010, respectively, by unanimous decision and majority decision to southpaw Craig Mcwan (19-0, 10 KOs) and Issac Rodriguez.
Kirkland and McEwan, who meets Lee on March 12, still are undefeated. Rodriguez (17-2, 13 KOs) was unbeaten when he faced Vera, but has been knocked out in the seventh and fourth rounds of his past two fights.
Vera's lone win during his previous five outings had been a third-round knockout of Canada's Sebastian Demers, who entered their June bout with a record of 31-2 that included 11 stoppages.
Citing promoter Lou DiBella, BoxingScene.com reported that Vera could face Lee in a rematch should Lee defeat McEwan. Vera rose from a first round knockdown to defeat Lee
Bryan Lee Vera Upsets Sergio Mora By Split-Decision
Feb 4, 2011 – 10:54 PM
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