Oscar Collazo Retains Unified Titles Against Jesus Haro

There are nights in boxing when the promotional machinery outpaces the action inside the ropes, and Saturday's co-feature at the Honda Centre in Anaheim, California, was one of them. Oscar De La Hoya had spent the build-up week proclaiming his fighter, Oscar Collazo, a top-two pound-for-pound talent. By the time referee Thomas Taylor waved off proceedings after six one-sided rounds, any neutral observer would have concluded that the assessment, while not without merit, had been somewhat prematurely road-tested against a challenger with limited means to challenge it.

Collazo, the 29-year-old from Villalba, Puerto Rico, retained his unified WBA and WBO strawweight titles when the corner of Jesus Haro declined to send their man out for the seventh round at the Honda Centre. It was Collazo's seventh defence of the WBO belt and third as the undisputed lineal champion at 105 pounds. He moves to 14-0 with eleven knockouts. Haro, 23, from Merced, California, drops to 13-4 with two stoppages, and will return to the drawing board having discovered, as challengers before him have, that the gap between wanting to fight a unified champion and being equipped to trouble one is considerably wider than the promotional calendar suggests.

The arithmetic of the mismatch was visible almost from the opening bell. Haro arrived with a plan, as most sensible challengers do, and that plan was mobility. Constant lateral movement, reluctance to engage in sustained exchanges, and the hope that persistent evasion might unsettle a man of Collazo's precision. As plans go, it was not unreasonable. The execution, however, was hampered by one unavoidable reality: Collazo is a smooth, left-handed operator who makes the ring feel considerably smaller than its dimensions suggest, and Haro, with only two stoppages in thirteen wins, simply lacked the punching authority to discourage the champion from walking him down.

By the third round, the shape of the evening had become clear. Collazo, working with the composed patience of a fighter who knows he has time and tools, began to systematically dismantle Haro's movement with body punches. The left hand to the ribs was the weapon of choice, and Haro's reactions told the full story. Each time Collazo found the mark downstairs, Haro would cover, clinch, or retreat. There was no answer in his arsenal, no counter threat to make the champion recalculate his approach.

The fifth round was Collazo's most authoritative. He landed a left hand to the body midway through, causing Haro to visibly wince and drop his hands momentarily, and continued to follow the same path, with variations of the hook downstairs. Haro, to his credit, kept moving and kept surviving, which is more than some have managed against the Puerto Rican. But surviving and competing are different propositions, and by this stage Haro was firmly in the former.

When Haro did emerge for the sixth, his movement had slowed considerably, the body work having taken its cumulative toll in the way that only sustained punishment to the midsection can. Collazo continued with the same composed approach, connecting with power left hands and right hooks without facing any serious counter-threat. Haro was holding more, retreating more, and absorbing more, and the inevitable was becoming merely a matter of timing. The champion himself admitted afterwards that he had not expected his opponent to come out for the sixth, and that Haro had simply lasted a round longer than anticipated.

When Haro did not emerge for the seventh, the decision by his corner was entirely responsible and left no room for legitimate complaint. The fight had run its course, and further punishment would have served no purpose beyond satisfying those who prefer stoppages to corner retirements, a distinction that says more about the observer than the outcome.

The broader context is worth noting. Collazo is a genuine talent at a weight class that receives a fraction of the attention it deserves in Britain and Europe, where 105 pounds might as well be a different sport. The comparison to Roman Chocolatito Gonzalez, made in Puerto Rico during the build-up, is premature and unhelpful to a fighter who has not yet faced opposition of that calibre. What Collazo is, demonstrably, is the best fighter currently operating at strawweight in the portion of the world that stages regular, competitive boxing at this weight. The Ring Magazine pound-for-pound top ten listing, while not a document of scientific precision, reflects genuine respect within the sport for what he has achieved.

What he needs, and what Saturday's exercise did not provide, is a fight that tests him. Plans remain in place for a rematch with Melvin Jerusalem, the WBC and IBF holder, who won a close decision over Siyakhola Kuse in Manila last year and defends that belt again on May 16 in Johannesburg. A Collazo-Jerusalem rematch, potentially for all four major titles at minimumweight, would represent genuine news at 105 pounds. Collazo stopped Jerusalem in May 2023 to begin his WBO reign. Jerusalem, not a man who appears to lack either ambition or nerve, will presumably have thoughts on a rematch.