By Doug Fischer
This Saturday’s Showtime-televised challenge of WBC super welterweight titlist Vernon Forrest is not only Sergio Mora’s sternest test as a professional boxer, it’s his first fight at the 154-pound limit and his first bout scheduled for the 12-round championship distance.
Given these factors, Mora’s conditioning is as paramount as his gameplan and mindset going into his first crack at a respected “name” opponent.
Most fight scribes and pundits have so little respect for Mora as world title challenger, believing the East L.A. native who gained fame on The Contender TV series lacks both the talent and skill to contend with Forrest, they haven’t bothered to wonder if the career middleweight will be able box effectively at 154 pounds or fight hard in the “championship rounds” of the bout, should it go the distance.
Those concerns are the job of Mora’s conditioning coach, Robert Ferguson, a Ventura-based fitness guru and nutritionist who has worked with notable fighters such as Samuel Peter and Steve Forbes but is perhaps best known in the boxing world for having had the unenviable task of getting Fernando Vargas down to fighting weight during the twilight of the Oxnard native’s career.
Next to Vargas, who Ferguson likes and respects, Mora is a dream client. The 27-year-old bookworm and film buff (give the ‘Latin Snake’ the name of any Al Pacino movie and he can recite the most memorable line from the flick while doing a pretty decent imitation of the Academy Award winner) keeps his weight down in-between fights and loves to be challenged in the gym.
And since on more than one occasion Ferguson was able to get ‘El Feroz’ down from 220 to 154 pounds you can understand why he’s always believed that Mora, who seldom walks around heavier than 170 pounds, could not only make 154 pounds but be a force in the junior middleweight division.
Ferguson first suggested the move down in weight after the first fight that he worked with Mora, a seventh-round stoppage of Archak TerMeliksetian two years ago.
“He weighed in at 157 pounds for that bout,” Ferguson recalled, “and he was fast and strong during the fight. I told him what I thought about his fighting at junior middleweight and asked me ‘are you sure?’. I told him ‘You’re only three pounds over and you ate breakfast before the weighin, of course I’m sure’.
However, Mora, who turned down an HBO-televised shot at then-middleweight champ Jermain Taylor last May, stayed at 160 pounds until the opportunity to fight Forrest came about earlier this year.
“Sergio was still a little worried that making 154 pounds might drain him of his energy when we started camp nine weeks ago,” Ferguson said, “but he weighed 156 pounds last week and he’s looking awesome in sparring.
“He’s on pace to peak this Saturday.”
Mora’s last fight, a Telefutura-televised bout that took place this past January, was a sluggish sixth-round stoppage of Rito Ruvalcaba, a faded vet who hadn’t been in the ring for three and half years. Mora, who injured his thumb during the fight and had to endure his share of criticism for not blowing out the shopworn opponent, probably did not report to camp in the highest of spirits.
That was OK with Ferguson, a former Marine, who brings a military philosophy to the start of his training regimens. Any doubts a fighter brings to camp about his weight or fitness are literally WORKED out of his system by the third week.
“I break ‘em down so I can build ‘em up,” the conditioning coach said.
“At the beginning of Mora’s camp, before he starts sparring, I’m in the gym with him Monday through Saturday – not doing any weight-lifting that’s too intense but doing something to shock his body in a way to get him ready to be in shape a few weeks later. I make sure he’s sore during the first week.”
Ferguson, who fought competitively as a Mixed Martial Artist in the ‘90s and early part of this decade, doesn’t simply gear his fighter workouts to losing weight and gaining physical strength. He modifies each regimen to build on his clients’ strengths while improving their weak areas.
The early part of Mora’s camp focuses on developing explosive speed and power through Olympic-style lifts and Plyometric drills.
“Sergio has an awkward style, so my conditioning helps him to be good at that,” Ferguson said. “We work on building up his legs, balance and quick-twitch muscles, and at the same time we increase his strength to improve his punching power and inside fighting.”
By the fourth week of camp, Ferguson pulls back from working with Mora six days a week to three days a week and focuses on building core strength and stamina with abdominal and back exercises and track intervals.
Even the lifting is geared toward stamina as opposed to brute power.
“The goal of the Olympic-style lifts, which are clean and jerk extensions with overhead push presses, is not the amount of weight but rather the consistency of his movement through the 15 reps and his recovery time,” said Ferguson. “At the start of camp Sergio is in agony, but he always gives 100%. A lot of guys won’t work that hard, but Sergio does. By the sixth week of training he wants to do extra sets and go more rounds.
“He’s very goal-oriented so I time his track workouts, which are mostly 400-meter intervals. The first week on the track he ran the quarter in one minute and 31 seconds and he said he felt awful. Last week he ran the 400 in 56 seconds flat with no problem.”
As Mora’s sparring – which is conducted Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings during the early part of camp and later switched to Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evenings – increases from six- and eight-round sessions to 10 and finally 12 rounds, Ferguson pulls back the fighter’s strength training from three days a week to twice a week during the middle part of camp and then to once a week in the final stretch of preparations.
Ferguson works around Mora’s boxing training schedule and regularly communicates with the fighter’s coach, Dean Campos. Mora eagerly absorbs the concepts both trainers.
The only pro boxer Ferguson has worked with that possessed Mora’s mix of dedication, discipline, and willingness to learn was female fighting vanguard Lucia Rijker.
It was while working with Rijker (at the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood) that Ferguson first came into contact with Mora’s Saturday opponent.
“The first and last time I saw Vernon was at the Wild Card, maybe in late ’04 when he was just getting started with his comeback,” he recalled. “Not long after entering the gym with Lucia, Vernon walked up right behind her and pulled on her pony tail; just yanked it hard outta nowhere. She turned around and gave him a look like there was about to be a throwdown.
“She took him to the side like a military general, looked him dead in the eye, and told him ‘Don’t you ever do that again’. He said ‘Oh come on, baby, don’t be like that’ but she was firm, ‘No, don’t ever do that again’, and Vernon had to apologize.
“I hope Sergio pays him back for that behavior this Saturday.”
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