Sergio Mora

Early life

Raised without a father, Sergio lived in an East Los Angeles apartment downstairs from the apartment where his mother lived. His boxing will, he hopes, lift him and his family to a better standard of living. Sergio is a class of 1997 alumni of Schurr High School in Montebello, California.

Amateur career

As an amateur, he had a record of 40 wins and 10 losses, losing on points in the quarterfinals of the 1998 national golden gloves, the semifinals of the 1999 U.S. national championships, and in the challengers bracket final of the 2000 U.S. Olympic trials.

Boxing career

He is the champion of reality TV show The Contender, initially being a member of the West Coast Team. He fought Najai Turpin, the contestant who later committed suicide, in the first round. In the Quarter Finals he was put up against the favored Ishe Smith, beating him to reach the semifinals. He fought against Jesse Brinkley in the semifinals and defeated him after seven rounds, earning a place to box against Peter Manfredo in the final. In the final fight Sergio defeated Manfredo in a seven round unanimous decision to become the Contender champion. He defeated Manfredo by a split decision in a rematch.

Months later he beat Archak Ter-Meliksetian (15-3) by TKO in the 7th of 10 rounds.

Mora fought the IBA Title holder Eric Regan (26-2) on August 25, 2006, at the Arco Arena in Sacramento CA. Mora won by unanimous decision after 10 rounds. It was rumoured that Mora was to fight WBC/WBO middleweight title holder Jermain Taylor at some point during 2007. However, on March 15, 2007, Mora turned down a seven figure fight against Taylor that would have taken place in Memphis, which Mora felt was too close to Taylor's home of Little Rock, Arkansas (and that if the fight were to go to a decision, the judges would give Taylor a decision based on the fact that Taylor came from Little Rock, Arkansas). With only 18 career bouts at the time, Mora also felt he lacked experience to challenge for a world title.

Sergio was to fight Kassim Ouma (25-3-1 15 KOs) in a middleweight bout on September 15, 2007. It was to be televised on HBO as one of the undercard bouts supporting the main event, (Juan Manuel Márquez vs. Jorge Rodrigo Barrios). However, the event was canceled after Marquez suffered an injury during training. He fought Elvin Ayala on October 16, 2007 as the undercard of Gomez vs Tackie at The Home Depot Center. The 10-round fight ended in a draw as Ayala outworked a rusty Sergio in the first half of the fight, but Sergio came on in the 2nd half of the fight.

On January 11, 2008, Sergio Mora stopped Rito Ruvalcaba in the sixth round of their scheduled 10-round middleweight fight at the Casino Morongo. Mora was behind on two of three judges' scorecards entering the sixth round. He hurt Ruvalcaba with a combination, drove him to the ropes and landed another left hand, at which point the referee stopped the fight. But Ruvalcaba was still punching at the time of the stoppage, leading to some controversy.

WBC light middleweight championship

On June 7, 2008, Mora defeated Vernon Forrest via a 12 round majority decision to become the WBC Super welterweight champion. In the build-up to the fight, Forrest threatened to send Mora "out on a stretcher" and referred to him as the "pretender" (parodying "Contender"). However, Mora succeeded in pulling off the upset victory.

Forrest took an early lead in what began as a tactical bout, working behind a left jab and landing right hands. Mora started to force his way into the fight in the fourth round, throwing hard punches to Forrest's body and consistently outworking the defending champion. The final scores were 114-114, 115-113 and 116-112 in favor of Mora. After the fight, Forrest said that he had taken Mora lightly and cited that he did not train properly for the fight, resulting in his lack of punches thrown in the match.

Vernon Forrest (41-3) reclaimed his WBC 154-pound title on September 14, 2008, against Sergio Mora via unanimous decision. Forrest scored a knock down in round seven, had Mora in trouble in round nine and on his back foot for a majority of the bout. Mora had problems making weight for the rematch, having to lose two pounds after failing the initial weigh-in, and after the fight said that he did not expect the quick turnaround on the rematch clause and had needed more time to make the weight properly, resulting in his poor performance.

Move to middleweight

After the two fights with Forrest, Mora made a move up in weight and was to fight then Middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik. Pavlik would postpone the bout due to a nagging staph infection. Mora would attempt to keep the fight alive but ultimately it never happened, keeping Mora inactive for almost 2 years. After pulling out of the fight with Mora, Kelly Pavlik went on to lose against Sergio Gabriel Martínez.

On April 3, 2010, in his first fight in over eighteen months, Mora defeated Calvin Green by 7th round TKO on the Bernard Hopkins-Roy Jones Jr. 2 undercard. Mora dominated a game Green, fighting with him primarily on the inside landing combinations against him with his quicker hands. He hurt Green several times in the fight, and the ref had finally seen enough after an unanswered salvo of punches from Sergio in the 7th round.

Mora-Mosley

Mora fought Shane Mosley on September 18 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The bout ended up being a controversial split draw that prominent boxing website Boxrec scored 114-112 for Shane Mosley. The judges scores for the fight were: 115–113 Mora, 116–112 Mosley and 114–114.

Move to super middleweight

Mora's next fight was against fellow Contender participant Brian Vera. The bout was the main-event on ESPN2's Friday Night Fights on February 4, 2011. Mora lost to Vera by split decision.

Since the Vera fight, Mora has fought once against a stay-busy level opponent in November 2011 named Jose Alfred Flores, whom he defeated by corner stoppage before the eighth round began. He then got a rematch against Vera on August 11, 2012, where in a closely contested fight, he lost to Vera again via majority decision that was surprisingly not close whatsoever the score-cards of the 2 (of 3) judges who scored the fight for Vera (and would thus, give him the victory).

Return to middleweight and IBF title shot

On February 6, 2015 Mora was scheduled to face IBF titleholder Jermain Taylor on ESPN2 Friday Night Fights for Taylor's middleweight belt in Biloxi, Mississippi. The fight was however canceled. Instead Mora fought against Abraham Han for the USBA middleweight title. Mora won the fight by split decision.

WBA middleweight title shot

On August 1, 2015 Mora faced off against WBA champion Daniel Jacobs. The fighters exchanged knockdowns in round 1 and in the 2nd round Mora injured his right ankle. Jacobs was declared the winner via TKO.