“Hey, Tito, how you doing?”
“Life has been good,” Ernesto “Tito” Mercado tells me over the phone. “Been a pretty fun last couple days.”
Heh. Well, let’s see … he made a bunch of people mad. Got accused of clout-chasing. Had a torrent of profanity directed his way.
All in all, a great couple of days.
I can hear him smiling, this gutsy Pomona performer who just took a few big steps toward his dreams of boxing glory.
In a monumental feat of multi-tasking, the 23-year-old junior welterweight won – via knockout, of course – the biggest fight of his career so far while also getting the attention of his dream opponents.
Mercado KO’d former two-division champion Jose Pedraza in the fourth round of their scheduled 10-rounder at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, improving to 17-0 (16 KOs).
And then, during an interview in the ring, Mercado continued the conversation he started in the pre-fight news conference, turning his attention to WBC lightweight title-holder Shakur Stevenson, seated ringside.
“I want that punk right there,” Mercado said to Stevenson, peering up from beneath a blue hooded sweatsuit. “I’d widen up that gap between his teeth.”
In a spate of videos posted online, you can see Stevenson shoot up out of his seat and direct some invective back toward Mercado that I couldn’t possibly quote in a family newspaper. And Mercado mimic a kiss back, mission accomplished. What a rascal.
“I thought, ‘I’m going to make this public so he can’t say I never called him out,’” said Mercado, who has, for the record, been trying to get on Stevenson’s radar for years. At least as far back as 2022, when he gave this smirking response to a question about Stevenson: “No power, big mouth.”
Of course, back then, Mercado was a relative unknown, a powerful puncher but not a power player, politically.
He hadn’t yet taken care of three former title challengers Hank Lundy, Jeremia Nakathila and Jayson Velez in a combined total of nine rounds – including a second-round KO of Nakathila, who’d gone 12 rounds with Stevenson and was ranked among ESPN’s top 10.
Nor had Mercado signed with big-name promoter Eddie Hearn, who brought him under the Matchroom banner last year, calling the Pomona High graduate a “wrecking machine.”
And Mercado hadn’t yet had an audience with Stevenson, or with members of Keyshawn Davis’ contingent; he’s another fighter Mercado has been eyeing the past few years, since Davis got the U.S. Olympic team nod in 2021 that Mercado believes he would have earned, had he been given a shot.
“I just want to settle that debt,” Mercado told me in 2023, seven fights and six knockouts ago. “Even though I’m over it, I’m kind of not over it, if that makes sense … so hopefully it’s sooner than later. I’ll just keep knocking people out, and hopefully he keeps winning too.”
A one-sided bargain, perhaps, but both parties have kept up their ends of it – which gave Mercado an opening to make his case in Las Vegas, as loudly and with as much gusto as possible.
He started by turning up the volume at the pre-fight news conference, what he complained had been a staid affair, his fellow fighters giving cliche answers about how their respective camps went. “Everybody looked bored there, even the reporters,” Mercado said. “But I added a touch of life to it.”
He dissed Pedraza: “This ain’t no step up. That peanut head don’t know what he’s talking about. I’ma go over there and knock out this (punk).”
And he kept going: “After that, I’ma call out the names I been wanting. Shakur, I’m sure you around here somewhere. If not, I’ll see his chipmunk-head on Saturday night. But if not Shakur, Keyshawn … it don’t matter to me.”
This is where I should tell you that Mercado is the kind of guy who hustles to find something for a reporter to sit on when she visits the Pomona gym where he and his brothers are trained by their father, Neto.
That Tito is the type of pro athlete who sends thank-you texts after an interview. The type of person who’s still in touch with high school teachers, who were big fans of him as a student, before he started climbing boxing’s ladder. He’s the big brother who is always ready to brag on those younger brothers, Danny and Damian.
Tito has a mouth on him, but he’s also got a good head on his shoulders.
Exceptionally disciplined is in the ring, mindful of the stakes in each bout, and all of the potential implications.
So a couple of years ago in Managua, Nicaragua, when he fought Xolisani Ndongeni – and the unfamiliar effects of local humidity – Mercado decided it would be better, that one time, to win via decision rather than to go for the knockout and leave himself vulnerable to a mistake that could hurt him that night or later on.
And last week against Pedraza, Mercado resisted being sped up by the trash talk coming from a pro-Stevenson crowd turned pro-Pedraza crowd after Mercado’s series of call-outs. “I’ve been through a lot more stuff than that,” said Mercado, whose boxing career not only kept him on track but lured his dad away from trouble.
“It’s easy for me to keep my cool,” said Tito, who stick to the game plan waiting for the right time to deliver a devastating left-right combination that landed Pedraza – who had connected on only nine punches – flat on his back.
And all his huffing and puffing around the fight? That was strategic, authentic Tito.
“Nothing is acting, it’s all real stuff, and if it gets people to get triggered, hey,” Mercado said. “I want to be entertaining.”
And the people? They are entertained.
Here’s a sampling of the headlines and video titles published in the past few days: “Tito Mercado Got Next.” “Ernesto ‘Tito’ Mercado Wants ‘All The Smoke.’” “The future of boxing has arrived.” “TITO MERCADO TAKES AIM & FIRES ON ALL CYLINDERS.”
Mercado stresses that doesn’t hate any of those opponents he’s taken aim at, but he does hate that he hasn’t had a shot at them.
The 135-pound Stevenson didn’t seem enthused about the idea of giving the 140-pound Mercado one, suggesting that because they’re in different weight classes, they won’t meet.
“What’s the guy’s name?” Stevenson asked in a video posted by Esco Combat Media after his back and forth with Mercado. “You’re talking about fighting me? But you’re at 140, bro. You’re just calling my name out to get views.”
Mercado’s rebuttal: Stevenson offered to go up to 140 to fight Ryan Garcia, why wouldn’t he do it now?
In the video, Stevenson asked: “If a contract come across your desk, will you even fight me?”
Heh. I don’t know what kind of odds they’d give Mercado to win that fight, but as for whether he’d take it? I’d put it at somewhere around 100%. Heck yeah and absolutely, for Mercado, that would be a very fun day.