(Photo credit: Ryan Greene/Premier Boxing Champions) By Patrick McHugh: In a lackluster performance, former IBF lightweight champion Miguel Vazquez (36-5, 13 KOs) had to struggle hard to beat 2nd tier welterweight Erick Bone (16-4, 8 KOs) by a close 10 round unanimous decision last Saturday night on Premier Boxing Champions at the Cowboys Dancehall in San Antonio, Texas.
After the fight, Vazquez, said he wants to fight former four division world champion Adrien Broner next. It’s unclear why Broner would want to fight Vazquez because he’s ranked in the top 15 at light welterweight and he’s lost two out of his last four fights.
Vazquez came into the Bone fight having lost two out of his last three fights. If Broner is going to be fighting guys like Vazquez instead of the relevant fighters at 140, then he’ll look like he’s taking his career downwards rather than upwards.
Broner already took a lot of heat recently in facing fringe contender Ashley Theophane last April rather than one of the higher ranked contender in the light welterweight division. Broner couldn’t even make weight for the Theophane fight, and ended up losing his WBA 140lb title on the scales.
“I’ve always wanted to fight Adrien Broner. I want to make that,” said Vazquez after the fight.
Vazquez doesn’t look like he’s cut out for fighting at light welterweight. He doesn’t look like he can match up well with any of the current champions in this weight class because he’s too weak and he doesn’t throw enough punches. Broner would likely destroy him, although I don’t know why Broner would even consider such a fight. Vazquez needs to move back down in weight to lightweight if he wants to find success with the remainder of his career.
It would be surprising if Vazquez can get a fight against Broner. That would make Broner look really bad if he started fighting guys that appear to be over-the-hill like Vazquez.
Vazquez lost his IBF World lightweight title in September 2014 to Mickey Bey in losing a 12 round split decision. Before that defeat, Vazquez had held the IBF title for four years from 2010 to 2014, and had successfully defended it eight times. However, after Vazquez’s loss to Bey, he was again beaten, this time by Argenis Mendez by a 10 round decision last October in 2010.
Vazquez, who now is fighting in the 140lb division, took the fight at welterweight against the 27-year-old Bone, and he did not look good at the heavier weight. Vazquez’s nickname is “Puppet” due to his ability to move around the ring with a loose style. However, now that Vazquez is heavier and older at 29, he’s stationary now and unable to move like he had done earlier in his career. Vazquez was right in front of Bone most of the fight, and many of the rounds were decided on Vazquez landing a few more shots than Bone.
The final judges’ scores were 96-94, 99-91, and 97-93. The 99-91 score in favor of Vazquez was a joke. That judge saw Vazquez winning almost every round, and that wasn’t the fight that took place night. Vazquez was losing many rounds and getting out-punched by the younger Bone. Vazquez appeared to lose four rounds in the fight. The 96-94 score was the best of the three if you want to know what happened in the fight.
Vazquez suffered a cut on the forehead in the 10th from a clash of heads. In the same round, Bone was cut on the side of his left eye. Bone suffered a nose bleed in the 7th.
Vazquez threw a lot of looping punches in the fight that were either picked off by Bone or would miss badly. It was only rarely that Vazquez was able to land his wide shots.
In fairness to Vazquez, he was fighting a full welterweight in the fight rather than a lightweight. This was his first fight in moving up in weight. Normally you see a fighter move up in weight fighting either someone from the division they left or someone in the next division. What Vazquez did last night was move up to light welterweight but he was fighting at welterweight in Bone.
“There was some difficulty adjusting to the late opponent switch, but overall, no problem. I had been sparring southpaws as well as right-handers. If I could have followed up on some of the hooks and overhand rights, I could have gotten him out of there,” said Vazquez
Other boxing results on last night’s card in San Antonio:
Miguel Flores UD 10 Ruben Tamayo
Brandon Figueroa KO 5 Jonell Nieves