Carlos Ocampo is on the rise. The 26-year-old Mexican is 34-1 (23 KOs). He has won his last dozen fights, nine by knockout. He’s ranked at 154 pounds by the WBC. All of which is why he received a crack at top contender Sebastian Fundora on Saturday in Carson, California.
Yet most of the questions he fielded during a recent virtual news conference centered on his only loss four-plus years ago.
Ocampo was stopped by a single right to the body from welterweight titleholder Errol Spence Jr. that rendered him unable to continue in the final seconds of the opening round of their June 2018 fight, a disappointing end to the momentum he had built over six years as a pro.
He has done a good job of rebuilding but can’t shake the setback.
“Look, I made a rookie mistake,” Ocampo said through a translator. “There was about three seconds left in the first round and I got careless. … I should’ve have done that, it shouldn’t have happened, but I moved forward and am better for it.”
Ocampo returned at junior middleweight only two months after the loss to Spence, kicking off a successful run that has lifted him back into the rankings.
The first 10 of his 12 victories came against mediocre opposition in Mexico. He then knocked out capable Canadian Mikael Zewski in nine rounds this past March in Quebec and stopped Vicente Martin Rodriguez in one round in June in Anaheim, California.
Ocampo feels he’s ready for “The Towering Inferno,” the hard-charging 6-foot-5 Fundora.
“I think the last two fights were huge for me,” he said. “Both were [minor] title fights … one in Canada, one in the United States. That’s exactly what I needed to get where I want.”
Of course, Ocampo wants to get another shot at a world title. And he feels he’s in a better position to win one than he was when he fought Spence.
He was only 22 when he challenged Spence; he said he’s more mature now, both physically and mentally. He has the experience of fighting on the biggest stage, against Spence. And, again, he learned first hand what can happen when you let your guard down.
“The biggest lesson I learned was that I have to be more cerebral, to think about things more,” he said. “… Just one second of being careless in the ring, you can pay a very high price for it. That was a hard, but necessary lesson to learn.
“I’m not going to make that mistake again. Lesson learned, I can assure you of that.”
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