By Jim Dower: Super bantamweight champion Israel Vazquez, 42-4 with 31 KOs hopes to get his second consectuve over Rafael Marquez on Saturday night when the two meet at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California for their third bout in the past year. Each fighter has split a victory in bouts that have been nothing less than all out war for as long as it lasted. In the first bout, Marquez stopped Vazquez in the 7th round when Vazquez was unable to continue fighting due to a broken nose that effected his ability to breath.
In their rematch on August 4th, 2007, the fight was prematurely stopped in the 6th round after Marquez was knocked down. It was a bad stoppage, and seemed to leave unfinished business between the two fighters. However, as awful as the stoppage was, there’s no denying that Marquez was badly hurt in the bout from numerous huge left hooks thrown by Vazquez. Marquez, 32, had almost no defense for the big punches, as he was repeatedly tagged in every round of the fight. Despite the knockdown, I had the fight scored almost even at the time of the stoppage, mostly because of Marquez’s superior work rate.
It seemed as if Marquez had purposely decided on fighting a brawling type of bout with Vazquez, perhaps thinking that he needed to prove that he could beat him in that manner as well as by boxing him. The fight was a complete opposite of how Marquez fought Vazquez in their first bout, a fight in which Marquez used his jab to soften up Vazquez’s facial features, particularly his prominent nose, and then come behind them with right hands. Marquez’s jab was extraordinary in that fight, which makes it so shocking that he opted not to use it in their second bout fought five months later.
What’s more worrisome, however, is all the head shots that Marquez took in the bout from Vazquez. Marquez was hit with quite a few sledgehammer blows from Vazquez, and hurt several times in the bout. Unlike Vazquez, who only sustained a broken nose in his first bout with Marquez, and no comparable head trauma like Marquez sustained. It’s only been seven months since their last bout, and that may just be too soon for Marquez to be taking on huge puncher like Vazquez.
Naturally, Marquez could perhaps still win the fight if he were to fight more defensively, concentrating on staying on the outside and using his jab more frequently. However, something tells me that Marquez won’t choose to fight in that manner, and instead will attempt to brawl as he has down before. Call if pride, machismo or whatever, Marquez will possibly make the mistake of trying to stand in front of Vazquez and match him punch for punch. If he does use this strategy, then I have little doubt that the outcome will end in a similar fashion as their most recent bout – with Marquez being stopped inside the distance.