Brief, eyewitness accounts from the career of Jesus Soto Karass

By Bart Barry-

Late Thursday night on one of ESPN’s innumerable affiliates Dominican journeyman Juan Carlos Abregu beat up Mexican journeyman Jesus Soto Karass. The match would prove a good offramp for Soto Karass if he let it, but surely we know he probably will not.

Whenever I think of Soto Karass I think of Antonio Margarito, the star of the Siete Mares stable to which Soto Karass belonged for much of his career. Soto Karass was his own man, of course, but he was a poor-man’s Margarito to most of us. His career went as experts initially predicted Margarito’s would go – maybe wrangle an upset or two against overhyped contenders but certainly never attain a championship of his own. It speaks to luck th’t Margarito’s style, and perhaps his handwraps, found their perfect matches in Margarito’s physical prime while Soto Karass’ did not come till he was acceleratingly treadworn. Soto Karass was all attrition every time, and if you think that made him noteworthy on undercards comprising mostly fellow Mexicans, you’ve not attended many such undercards.

I was ringside for seven Soto Karass fights but not one time to see him fight. The first time I covered him, May 2006 in Fountain Hills, Ariz., he was 11-3-1 and drew with Manuel Gomez (28-10-1) in what must’ve been a “Solo Boxeo de Miller” main, but none of us was there to see those guys – local prospect Jesus Gonzales sold the tickets, Urbano Antillon went directly through Soto Karass’ older brother Jose Luis in the comain, and Mike Alvarado and Giovani Segura filledout the undercard in their eighth and ninth prizefights respectively. Antillon is the only fighter I remember that night.

Thirteen months later I was beside a ring in the parking lot of a Tucson nightclub when Soto Karass retired “Cool” Vince Phillips – the man who once stopped Kostya Tszyu and Mickey Ward two months apart in 1997 (guys used to fight that often men of that quality) – but that night I was more interested in seeing Mike Alvarado again. What I remember from that parkinglot was watching Telefutura’s Bernardo Osuna improvise an entire opening bit off a few lines scribbled on an index card taped to the bottom of his camera, and watching a broken Phillips beg for a postfight interview to announce his retirement in English on a Spanish-language broadcast that ran out of time and didn’t let him, which meant Phillips fought again and lost again, this time in Russia, 11 months later.

The first time I covered Soto Karass in a mainevent came in July 2008 at Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas on the eve of Margarito-Cotto 1, and I remember no boxing from that weekend except Margarito’s bludgeoning of Cotto. Writing of Cotto, the next time I covered a Soto Karass match from ringside he was down the marquee, losing to Alfonso Gomez in the co-co-main of Pacquiao-Cotto, and more to the point in the enviable position of following “Son of the Legend” Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.’s decisioning Troy Rowland (result subsequently changed). I vaguely recall being impressed by Gomez a bit, and I verily recall the childlike enthusiasm we all had in the pressroom immediately after Pacquiao ragtagged Cotto: Manny’s going to fight Floyd next!

Instead Manny fought Joshua next in Cowboys Stadium, and when Manny returned to Texas in November 2010 to fight Margarito, himself returning from banishment, Soto Karass got sneaked-past by an undefeated Mike Jones, and I have a slight recollection of feeling disappointed for Soto Karass. Too, I was in Las Vegas the night Soto Karass got iced by Marcos Maidana, but I was with every other aficionado at Thomas & Mack to see Sergio Martinez barely escape Son of the Legend, not partaking of the Canelo sideshow at MGM Grand.

And I’m proud to say I was ringside for Soto Karass’ biggest and probably final victory when he got off the bluemat in round 11 to stop Andre Berto at AT&T Center in my adopted hometown of San Antonio. That was an attrition lover’s feast – as Soto Karass willed his way through Berto just after Omar Figueroa and Nihito Arakawa fortituded one another relentlessly for 36 minutes. Five months later, in December 2013, Soto Karass returned to Alamo City and got stopped by Keith Thurman at Alamodome in a comain whose memory was steamcleaned by what Maidana did to Adrien Broner immediately thereafter. Since then Soto Karass is 0-4-1 (2 KOs), though with two memorable showings against Yoshihiro Kamegai.

Thursday night Soto Karass was nearly returned whence he started, fighting on an afterthought Golden Boy Promotions card in the ballroom of an Arizona casino – though it bears mention the match was being judged by Roger Woods, formerly his state’s best matchmaker, and had Soto Karass gotten to the final bell at least one scorecard would’ve proved unimpeachable. The match did not get to the final bell, Soto Karass did not get there, falling overknee forward onto a right uppercut in round 8 then getting dropped. Soto Karass rose unconsciously, proof such things are habitforming, nodded to his cornermen he was continuing, then raised his hands unbidden overhead to assure the ref he was able. The end came pretty quickly after that and ugly.

One suspects such an end be too symmetrical for Soto Karass to retire. Thursday was a 10-rounder. Next year’ll likely see him lose an eightrounder and so forth till the purses become too tiny to bother.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry