By Dan Ambrose: #7 WBC contender Miguel Berchelt (31-1, 28 KOs) showed tonight that he doesn’t have as weak a chin as many boxing fans previously thought with him coming on and stopping the previously unbeaten WBC super featherweight champion Francisco Vargas (23-1-2, 17 KOs) by an 11th round knockout at the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, California.
Berchelt, 25, was hitting a badly hurt Vargas at will with shots in the 11th round when the fight was halted by referee Raul Caiz Jr. The official time of the stoppage was at 2:19 of round 11. Vargas’s face was virtually unrecognizable after the fight, as he was so badly lumped up from the heavy shots that he’d take from Berchelt.
It’s really not all that surprising that Berchelt was able to get the win. If you saw how much punishment Vargas had taken in his two previous fights against Orlando Salido and Takashi Miura, it was clear that he was probably too worn out from those fights for him to get past Berchelt unless he went after him early.
Vargas took a TON of heavy blows in the Salido and Miura fight. He was able to beat Miura , but he couldn’t beat Salido. The fight scored a draw. Salido easily won the fight in the eyes of many boxing fans. The judges seemed to be watching a different fight than the one that they scored that night, because Salido dominated from start to finish.
The results of the fight were less important than the horrible punishment Vargas had taken against Salido. With a beating like that, it would have been better for Vargas to have taken a year off rather than just six months because he was never going to be at his best returning to the ring so soon after a grueling fight like that. Some fighters can, but those are usually the younger ones. Vargas isn’t young at 32.
As for Vargas, he needs to consider taking a long layoff from boxing so he can recover from his three consecutive hard fights. He’s had three very hard fights without a break in between in terms of facing a soft touch. Vargas should think about taking a year off and licking his wounds from this fight. The Vargas that beat Miura likely would have defeated Berchelt tonight. He was still fresh at that time, and not all worn down from having been battered by Miura and Salido in back to back fights. If Vargas comes back from this loss too soon, he’s probably going to get battered and knocked out. Tonight, Vargas looked like a fighter that was gun-shy from his past beat downs. He did not look confident.
Berchelt isn’t going to have too much time to celebrate his victory before he has to get back inside the ring and fight an arguably even tougher opponent in former WBC super featherweight champion Takashi Miura in his next fight. The southpaw Miura, 31, destroyed Miguel “Mickey” Roman by a 12th round knockout tonight to put himself in position to fight for the WBC title next. Berchelt had it easy with Vargas, who was wilting from the 1st round from his punches.
It’s going to be a different story with Miura. He’s going to be hitting Berchelt back and looking to take his head off with every punch he throws. If Berchelt does have a chin problem like many boxing fans think he does, then it’s going to be exposed by Miura. The Japanese fighter knocked Roman down three times in the fight in dropping him in round 10, 11 and 12. If that had been Berchelt in the ring with Miura , it just as easily have been him that was getting knocked down over and over again.
