By Jim Dower: Former World Boxing Council super bantamweight champion Israel Vazquez (44-4, 32 KO’s) defeated 35-year-old journeyman Angel Antonio Priolo (30-8, 20 KO’s) by a 9th round stoppage on Saturday night at the Nokia Theater, in Los Angeles. Vazquez, 31, making his first appearance in 19 months following surgery to repair a detached retina which he suffered in his last fight against Rafael Marquez last year in March, dropped Priolo three times in the 9th round before the bout was finally stopped by referee Pat Russell at 2:10 of the 9th.

It wasn’t an impressive performance by Vazquez, however, as he was even on two of the judges’ cards at 76-76 and was ahead on the third 78-74 at the time of the stoppage. I had Priolo slightly ahead at the time of the stoppage. Regardless of the time that Vazquez has been away from the ring, he should have been able to handle a fighter like Priolo without any problems.

Priolo came into the fight having lost his last six fights, with five of the losses being knockout defeats. It wasn’t that Vazquez looked rusty. He also looked really slow, as if he had lost much of his hand speed in the past 19 months while he was away from the ring.

Before his 19 month layoff, Vazquez fought three consecutive wars with Rafael Marquez, winning two of the three fights. However, there was a huge cost in winning the fights because Vazquez took a terrifying amount of punishment in each of the fights. Perhaps that in part could be one of the reasons why Vazquez had such a tough time beating Priolo.

Priolo beat Vazquez to the punch over and over again in the opening round, tagging him with constant incoming shots. Vazquez fired back with his own shots, but he missed a lot and wasn’t as busy as Priolo. It was alarming how bad Vazquez looked in the round, as if he was a completely different fighter. His speed was gone and his power was gone as well for the most part. His punches had no effect on Priolo and didn’t look powerful in comparison to the top super bantamweights that have taken over the division with Vazquez’s absence.

Vazquez fought back in the 2nd round, getting the better of Priolo by landing a number of hard right hands to the head. It was a close round, though, and it just as easily could have gone to Priolo because he was landing shots at an alarming rate.

In rounds three through seven, Priolo totally dominated Vazquez, outworking him by throwing a high number of shots. Vazquez was unable to throw nearly as many punches and the shots that he did land weren’t all that powerful. During this time, Vazquez was starting to get beaten up, his face puffy and bruised under both eyes and his forehead marked up from the many shots that he was getting hit with. In the 7th, Vazquez was cut above the left eye on the side.

It was a huge cut and it looked like he wouldn’t be able to last much longer before the fight was stopped by the referee. Perhaps for this reason, Vazquez finally showed some fire coming out for the 8th round, and landed some big shots in the round. It was a close round, as Vazquez, like the other seven previous rounds, was hit often by Priolo.

At one point late in the round, Vazquez grabbed the left arm of Priolo to prevent him from the throwing punches. However, Priolo continued to batter Vazquez with his free hand, tagging him Vazquez four times in the head with solid shots. It looked sad to see Vazquez reduced to having to hold a journeyman’s arm to try and slow him down from punching, it was kind of pitiful in a way. This was a fighter that Vazquez should have been able to destroy, yet he was getting dominated by him.

In the 9th round, Vazquez hurt Priolo with a hard right hand and then immediately followed it by two more chopping right hands to send Priolo down. He got up and was met by a horde of hard single shots from Vazquez. Seconds later, Priolo went down for the second time in the round, this time from a left-right combination. Priolo barely beat the count by getting up at the count of nine. Vazquez then backed him up the ropes and dropped him with a left to the head. Referee Pat Russell then stepped in and halted the bout 2:10 of the round.

If Vazquez is smart, he’ll go after a 4th fight with Rafael Marquez as soon as possible. The bout would make a lot of money and keep Vazquez from getting beaten by someone else. At this point, I see it as only a matter of time before Vazquez gets beaten by someone. He looks to have slipped a ton in the past two years. It’s hard to say how badly he’s degraded as a fighter because he’s only fought Marquez in the past two years.

Never the less, I think Vazquez would lose to many of the top 15 super bantamweights in the division right now. This is why he would be better off taking another big money fight against Marquez rather than fighting a contender – or journeyman – and likely getting beaten.