Giovanni Cabrera is a 29-year-old lightweight who hails from Chicago and currently trains at the Wild Card Boxing club in Los Angeles. In a recent interview with BoxingScene, Cabrera (22-1, 7 KOs) discussed his upcoming bout against William Zepeda, scheduled for Saturday in Ontario, California, reflected on his challenging journey through the regional boxing circuit and recounted memorable past fights.
BoxingScene: Not many people want to fight William Zepeda. Why do you?
Cabrera: I think some people are looking for safe ways to title and I've made a reputation for myself – although many people may or may not know [I’ve beaten] seven undefeated fighters coming up, three of them southpaws. Ray Lampkin Jr., who was an Olympic alternate, Elijah Pierce, you know, those wins have aged well. Luis Porozo was 14-0 when I fought him. I've been put in these positions before, and this is what it takes. It allows me to elevate, to rise to the occasion. I need excitement. I want to fight good fighters.
BS: You fought a lot of those tough fights off television. Did that prep you mentally for these hard fights?
Cabrera: I guess it is like the toughest survive, survival of the fittest. I didn't get an easy path and there were people around me who were a little bit reckless with my career. I took it as a chip on the shoulder, saying, “OK, not only am I going to show you, but I'm going to show everybody, including myself, that I'm a contender.” I have the capability of beating these undefeated guys.
BS: So do you feel like you were being thrown in as the B-side guy, and you were winning these fights but being moved?
Cabrera: Absolutely.
BS: How did that change you as a fighter, just knowing that or feeling that?
Cabrera: It’s all about my will. It’s about the fighting spirit that one has, and if you have that fire inside you and you believe in yourself, you can become champion of the world. That's what it takes. To me, it didn't matter. It just didn't matter. I knew that there was no way that I was going to lose against these guys, especially this early in my career.
BS: Are you going to slow down the volume punching of Zepeda?
Cabrera: Absolutely, he's got all these guys that stay right in front of him. They're pretty predictable. It’s all about offsetting rhythm and using different angles. I’m a southpaw. I don't know how many southpaws he has [fought], but I've beaten three undefeated ones and I know exactly what it takes to beat an undefeated southpaw. I'm not a conventional fighter, and so it's gonna be tricky for him. Volume … a lot of people can throw 100 punches on the heavy bag when a heavy bag doesn’t move.
BS: Zepeda’s coach referenced Elvis Rodriguez at the press conference. Why? Are you sparring him in the buildup to this fight?
Cabrera: Not really to mimic him, but I like to get in there with bigger guys that throw powerful punches. Every now and then, they’ll throw in Callum Walsh, Elvis Rodriguez. For guys that size to try to push you back, and you are able to withstand that, it's great. It is a great type of sparring. William Zepeda is nowhere near their size or strength.
BS: What did you take away from your split decision loss to Isaac Cruz?
Cabrera: Just being on that stage, fighting one of the most avoided punchers in boxing, I realized that I don't have to move as much and I don't have to run as much. I'm strong enough. These guys cannot knock me out. I have a granite chin. I have a steel chin. I have a Jake LaMotta chin. You never really know fully until you've tested it against elite people; not to say that I want to test it, but I know I have the spirit, the fighting spirit, and the chin to go toe-to-toe with anyone. Not that I have to do this strategically, but I should have pushed Cruz back in the middle rounds, and I stood there in the middle rounds. He landed some pretty haymakers on me. I was like “Shit, maybe I'm getting lucky.”
Rounds 1 through 5, I thought I boxed pretty clean. I didn’t even get touched. He was so damn pissed off and frustrated. In the middle rounds, I just stood there in the middle of the ring with him and I shouldn't have done that. I should have pushed him back. Because once I realized that he couldn't hurt me, and in the later rounds, it seemed like nine to 12, I started pushing him back, I believe I knocked him down in the 11th, and they didn't count that. So it didn't count when they took away a point from him head-butting me, and he beat me by a point. Had they just been fair with the scorecards, I would have won. But this is boxing. Had I dominated, there would have been no question who was the winner, but I truly felt that I didn’t have to to win the fight. I really want that rematch, man, because this time I'll push him back. I'm not afraid of Isaac.
I knew my fight versus him, I was a nightmare. He probably still has nightmares about how the fight was going, because on the scorecards in Mexico, they had me winning the fight, and Sky Sports Europe, they had me winning the fight. There's a picture even, when they put the scorecards on TV in Mexico, with me winning and his face looks like, Holy shit, what just happened? So he knows inside his heart.
BS: What do you remember about the Gabe Flores fight?
Cabrera: Gabriel Flores was a great fight for me. He came in kind of cocky, kind of smug. I had heard that he was like that, and I remember we were in the casino, like, a day before the weigh-in or something. I see him and he's talking to Freddie [Roach], and he walks away. I don't know if Freddie was telling the truth or he was just trying to piss me off. But after they walk away, I asked Freddie what he said. What was that about? What'd he say? He said, “He walked up to me and he said, ‘I'm going to knock your fighter the fuck out.’” I was like, “No way.” I can't believe those were his first words to Freddie. Instead of saying, “Hey, Mr. Roach, pleasure to meet you, blah blah blah.” I couldn't believe it, and that really pissed me off, so I was like, “I don’t like this guy, I'm really going to fucking go after him. Freddie saw something in me right before the fight in the dressing room, and he got up all of a sudden. He said, “You go out there, and the first punch you throw, throw it with everything you got,” and I knocked him down in the first seven seconds.
BS: Were you ever close to retirement when you were inactive and COVID hit?
Cabrera: I just didn’t know what to do. I would never call it quits, man. Not now, with the undefeated record, man – there's no way in hell. I just knew that there had to be something, that I had to do something. I always dreamed about coming back into L.A. again. I had moved to L.A. when I was 19. Turning pro, I quickly realized, I'm not ready. I was sparring at Wild Card as a virtually unknown amateur. I went down to Mexico and I got a lot of experience down there. As an amateur, I won that tournament, got a bronze at the national tournament, and came back to Chicago and turned pro in Chicago. But I always knew that I had unfinished business in L.A.