Baldomir could enhance legacy by stopping Mayweather

Carlos Baldomir can remember things as far back as 30 years ago, when he was just 5. It was the first time he can recall sitting down with about 50 family members and friends in Santa Fe, Argentina, and watching Carlos Monzon fight.

The late Monzon is the most famous fighter the country has ever produced, and one of the great middleweight champions in history. Baldomir will never reach that level, but considering what he has recently accomplished after toiling in relative obscurity the first 12-plus years of his career, he hasn't done too shabbily.

"Carlos Monzon wasn't really my idol, but somebody I looked up to, who made me want to be a fighter," said Baldomir, who will defend his World Boxing Council welterweight belt Nov. 4 against Floyd Mayweather Jr. at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas (also on pay-per-view).

"As a kid, I thought, 'What am I going to be doing 20 years from now?'" Baldomir said. "And since I was watching Monzon fight, I decided that's what I wanted to do."

Monzon became middleweight world champion at age 28 and made 14 title defenses before retiring as champion a week before his 35th birthday with a record of 87-3-9 with 59 knockouts.

Carlos Baldomir likes the fit of the championship belt. (Getty Images)

Baldomir didn't become world champion until he was 34 -- only three months shy of 35 -- and his record is 43-9-6 with just 13 knockouts. It wasn't until he stunned the boxing world by taking the WBC belt from Zab Judah via unanimous decision last January that anyone other than his training team, and reporters perhaps, even knew who he was.

Baldomir followed that up with a ninth-round stoppage of Arturo Gatti in a title defense in July. Getting a TKO over a blown-up Gatti well past his prime is not much to brag about, but the victory over Judah certainly is, even if Judah was looking past Baldomir to a fight with Mayweather.

"Two months before that fight, I knew I was going to be world champion," Baldomir said. "The reason is because Judah was talking about Mayweather when he was fighting me. Throughout all the press conferences, he was talking about Mayweather, not me.

"I knew that his mind being on another fighter, that was going to be his downfall."

So there was Baldomir, in his first world title fight after nearly 13 grueling years as a pro, with a chance to become an unlikely champion.

"I had a really hard time," Baldomir said of those many years when, in between fights, he would sell feather dusters on the streets of Santa Fe, trying to make ends meet for him and his family, which today consists of a wife and four children who live with him in Los Angeles. "The hardest thing was waiting for the opportunity after I fought everyone and beat everyone.

"I knew it was just a matter of time and I knew when it came, I would take advantage of it."

The thing is, Baldomir really had not fought everybody. The first 4½ years of his career were spent fighting exclusively in his homeland. Then he fought once at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif., in October 1997.