By Jim Dower: Super middleweight contender Edison Miranda (31-3, 27 KOs) fights Ugandan Joey Vegas (11-4-1, 4 KOs) in a scheduled 10-round bout on March 20th at the York Hall in Bethnal Green. Miranda, a 28-year-old knockout articles who is well known for his losses when stepping it up against better competition than his knockout victories, is hoping to use the fight against Vegas as a springboard for a potential fight against WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch in the future.
Before that can happen, however, a lot of things have to come into play, starting with Miranda defeating Vegas on March 20th. If Miranda is successful in defeating Vegas – and looks reasonably good in the process – then Miranda will have to wait and see what happens with Froch’s first title defense of his WBC title against Jermain Taylor in mid April.
That’s a tough fight to call right now, especially when taking into an account how badly Froch struggled in his last fight, a 12-round unanimous decision over Jean Pascal in December 2008. Froch looked easy to hit, slow and lead-footed against Pascal and got hit with everything that the Canadian threw at him until Pascal tired in the later rounds and ended up losing the fight.
However, if Froch can get through Taylor, then Miranda would have his 2nd shot at a world title belt. Three years earlier, Miranda was defeated by IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham by a controversial 12 round unanimous decision in Germany. The two fought a second time, albeit without a title on the line, last year in June and Abraham was able to take Miranda out in the 4th round.
Miranda’s career hasn’t been quite the same since losing a 7th round TKO to Kelly Pavlik in May 2007 in a WBC Middleweight Title Eliminator. Going into the fight, Miranda had only one defeat on his record and was predicted by many to defeat Pavlik. Instead, Miranda couldn’t handle the heavy blows and the constant pressure from Pavlik and was ultimately knocked down and stopped by him.
Vegas, 27, is coming off an eight round draw with Dean Francis on February 13th. Vegas appeared to win the fight by a close margin, but he didn’t help his case by throwing few punches in the last three rounds of the fight. He has good power when he’s letting his hands go, which would give him a decent chance of knocking the soft-chinned Miranda out if he can catch him with some hard shots early on.
Vegas needs to go after Miranda hard at the beginning because the longer the fight lasts, the more likely Vegas tires out like in his fight with Francis and gets taken out by Miranda. With the power than Miranda has, you don’t want to leave him in the fight long enough for him to land something big.
Miranda carries his power late in fights, and is capable of scoring a knockout at any time. Even in the absence of a knockout, getting hit often by a puncher like Miranda is no picnic and something Vegas should try to avoid at all costs.
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