By Dan Ambrose: Former two division world champion Jorge Arce (57-6-2, 44 KO’s) exposed World Boxing Organization (WBO) super bantamweight champion Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. (20-1-1, 17 KO’s) last Saturday night, handing Vazquez Jr. his first loss of his five-year pro career by stopping him in the 12th round with a flurry of shots that ended with Vazquez’s corner stepping into the ring to get the fight halted. The bout was officially stopped by referee Joe Cortez at 0:55 of the 12th.

The 26-year-old Vazquez Jr. couldn’t handle the constant pressure that Arce was putting on him and finally folded in the 12th. Vazquez Jr. started showing signs of breaking late in the 11th round when he suddenly lost his legs and was unable to fight at the center of the ring. Vazquez Jr. was then forced to fight with his back against the ropes taking vicious head shots from Arce until the round ended.

The 12th was merely a continuation of what was happening in the 11th with Arce pummeling Vazquez Jr. against the ropes nonstop until the fight was finally halted. Some people questioned the stoppage by Vazquez’s corner but believe me, they did the right thing in stopping the fight because Vazquez was getting the stuffing beaten out of him and would have been badly hurt if Arce could have continued to tag him freely without it being stopped.

Vazquez had his moments in the fight. He knocked Arce down in the last seconds of the 4th with a nice left hook to the jaw. However, Vazquez Jr. couldn’t add to it in the 5th, as Arce stayed close to Vazquez Jr. and kept the action on the inside where Vazquez proved to be very vulnerable. Arce was the much better inside fighter and by staying close, he prevented Vazquez Jr. from getting the proper leverage on his shots. The fight basically came down to an inside war with Arce landing the better shots and doing a great job of wearing down the inexperienced Vazquez until the stoppage. A loss for Vazquez Jr. was bound to happen sooner or later, because he had very little big fight experience at the time that he captured the vacant WBO super bantamweight strap against the equally inexperienced Marvin Sonsona last year in February. They did a good job of matching Vazquez Jr. against beatable guys like Zsolt Bedak, who had only 15 fights under his belt at the time that he fought Vazquez Jr. and Ivan Hernandez, a fighter that had recently been beaten at the time he fought Vazquez Jr.

I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t mind seeing Arce and Vazquez Jr. fight again. I don’t think Vazquez Jr. would win, because he has no inside game but it would be still fun to see Arce do his work on the inside. This guy has old time skills and it’s interesting to see some of these younger guys trying to beat Arce. They have no idea how to fight properly on the inside and Arce exposes this.