Road wins always feel like a little something extra.

Defeating other world class professionals is hard work. Doing it in someone else’s back yard often feels like it takes a little something extra. The story of boxing is littered with tales of fighters who saw earned victories denied on the road.

Jessica Nery Plata forced a different tale on Friday in Canada. In the first unification fight of 2023, the WBA light flyweight titlist from Mexico City won her eighth in a row and made it two straight in title fights, wresting the WBC strap from the waist of Kim Clavel in ten action-packed rounds. 

It was a fierce battle full of two-way action but also one with a clear winner. Plata was quicker on the draw in more rounds than not, landing between the shots of Clavel, drawing blood from Clavel’s nose, never leaving the judges the wiggle room that can let be too close for comfort.

In boxing, even that isn’t enough sometimes. It was on Friday in a fight where a noble outcome befitted a noble effort from both women. Plata, who won her first title on the road in Panama last year against a Yessica Bopp who had lost only once at Jr. flyweight (with another loss well outside the division), now stands as the lone champion in her class among the four major sanctioning bodies. Yokasta Valle, who defeated Evelyn Bermudez for the IBF and WBO straps last year, vacated to return to strawweight. 

That leaves a mountaintop with one ruler right now. It also sets the stage for even bigger fights for Plata.

Futures: For Clavel, defeat will sting but at 32 she can rebound. With two titles vacant in the division, chances for fresh hardware will be out there and the competition is thick in the span from 105 to 112 pounds.

That thick competition is something Plata can continue to build on. The 28-year old unified titlist can look up and down the scale and hope the win over Clavel allows her to continue to expand her horizons. At flyweight, Marlen Esparza leads the pack. One division below, the most exciting option might require a wait. Valle has two straps at strawweight. On March 25, the other two titles in that class will be unified when Seniesa Estrada faces Tina Rupprecht in an excellent contest. 

Estrada-Rupprecht could set up a four-belt unification with Valle. If it does, Plata stands out now as the best option just three pounds up. Keep an eye on this spot on the scale in 2023. Plata-Clavel may just have been a beginning.

Cliff’s Notes…

Celebrity boxing is only a problem if one makes it so. If the most time you spend on it is reading this sentence, that’s less time than it took to write it. Things like KSI scraps are easy to ignore and don’t hurt a thing…Efe Ajagba has been a pro for six years and it feels like we’ve seen the most that he can be already…Abraham Nova bounced back nicely from his loss to Robeisy Ramirez and also indicated how good Ramirez might be…If instant replay can ensure fair results like it did for Jonnie Rice against Guido Vianello, make it universal. That would have been a travesty for Rice to take a loss there.      

Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene, a founding member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, a member of the International Boxing Research Organization, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com