Arce stops Lacierva; Arroyo destroys Marquez

By Boxing News - 06/15/2014 - Comments

By Dan Ambrose: 34-year-old former 4-division world champion Jorge Arce (64-7-2, 49 KO’s) continued his progress towards a title shot against WBC featherweight champion Jhonny Gonzalez by stopping 35-year-old former three-time world title challenger Jorge Lacierva (41-10-6, 27 KO’s) by stopping him in the 8th round on Saturday night at the Arena Jorge Cuesy Serrano, Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, Mexico.

The fight was halted at the start of the 8th round due to Lacierva suffering an injury to his left shoulder and not being able to continue the fight. Lacierva suffered the shoulder injury in the 4th round, in which it appeared that his shoulder had come out of the socket. But somehow he was able to endure what appeared to be a great deal of pain for another 3 rounds before the fight was halted at the start of the 8th.

You could see that the bone in his left shoulder was protruding outwards at the time of the stoppage. His trainer attempted to put his shoulder back into the socket by pulling on his arm, but it wasn’t working and Lacierva looked in incredible pain while his left arm was being pulled on by his trainer.

Arce knocked Lacierva down with a left to the body in the 4th round shortly after Lacierva had suffered his shoulder injury. It’s unclear whether the shoulder injury contributed to the knockdown, because Lacierva looked to be distracted by the shoulder pain at the time he was knocked down. In the same round, Arce was twice docked points for hitting on the break by the referee. There were reports that the deductions came in the 5th round, but actually they occurred in the 4th round.

Additionally, Arce had another point deducted in the 7th round for hitting on the break once again. He motioned to his groin after the deduction, as if to communicate that he was paying Lacierva back for a low blow. Whatever the case, the referee made it clear that if Arce did it again he would disqualify him and he seemed to be dead serious. Luckily for Arce, the fight was stopped at the start of the round because he might have been disqualified had the fight gone much further.

All throughout the fight, Arce was leading with his head and ramming Lacierva with it in close. It was repetitive thing by Arce that clearly bothered Lacierva all fight long, but the referee failed to do anything about it. A lot of referees would have warned Arce for the head contact and taken points off, but this one didn’t.

Overall, Arce didn’t look that great in winning the fight. He’s put on muscle weight in moving up from super bantamweight to featherweight, and most of the weight has been added to his upper body. However, his legs look painfully thin and no bigger than they were when he was fighting at light flyweight. By failing to gain muscle size in his legs along with his upper body, Arce is now really top heavy with muscles and he doesn’t appear to have gained any punching power. If anything, Arce seems to be a far ineffective puncher than he was at flyweight, because the extra muscle weight in his upper body has slowed him down considerably and he’s unable to throw as many punches each round as he did before. The way that Arce fought against Lacierva, you would have to give him zero chance against a natural featherweight like Jhonny Gonzalez.

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In other action on the card, #10 IBF, #12 WBO super flyweight contender McJoe Arroyo (15-0, 8 KO’s) stopped Hernan “Tyson” Marquez (37-5, 26 KO’s) in the 11th round of a one-sided fight. Arroyo, 28 knocked the 25-year-old Marquez down 4 times in the fight before it was halted in the 11th round. Arroyo knocked Marquez down with a big right uppercut in the 11th. He then flurried on a badly hurt Marquez after he got up until the referee Gary Ritter stepped in and halted the fight at 0:47 of the 11th.

Marquez was knocked down in rounds 1, 3, 8 and 11 by Arroyo. In the 1st, Arroyo flattened Marquez with a straight left late in the round for the first knockdown of the fight. In the 3rd, Arroyo caught Marquez against the ropes and knocked him down with a right hook to the head. In the 8th, Arroyo dropped Marquez with a right hand to the head. After Marquez got back to his feet, he was hit with a blizzard of punches by Arroyo, but somehow the fight was allowed to continue despite the fact that Marquez was taking a real beating.



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