Will Israel Vazquez’s surgically repaired eye hold up against Marquez?

By Jim Dower: Israel Vazquez (44-4, 32 KO’s) will be coming into this Saturday’s fight against Rafael Martinez with a right eye that has been operated on three times since 2008 for a series of detached retinas. Vazquez, 32, originally suffered an initial detached retina in his third fight with Marquez in March 2008. Although Vazquez won the fight by a 12 round split decision after suffering the injury to his right eye early in the bout, he paid a big price for it.

Vazquez had to have to additional surgeries on his eye because the retina became detached again on its own while Vazquez was recovering from the first surgery. His eye held up in his fight against Angel Antonio Priolo in October 2009, but he took a lot of punishment in that fight. On Saturday night, Vazquez will be taking the big test for his eye against Marquez, who will be landing a lot of punches in that fight unless Vazquez can take him out early.

Vazquez was able to stop Marquez in the 6th round in their 2nd fight in August 2008, but he still took an awful lot of head shots in the six rounds of that fight. And in his third fight with Marquez, Vazquez’s face looked like it had gone through a meat grinder by the time that the bout was offer. He looked really bad. It’s going to be interesting to see if Vazquez’s right eye can hold up under the constant pounding that Marquez is going to be putting on it in this fight. I suspect that even if he does suffer another detached retina, Vazquez will keep firing away as if the injury didn’t occur and will be ready to go 12 rounds if he has to.

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