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Doug Fischer

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Marquez Forces Vazquez to Concede 122-pound Title on Stool, Darchinyan Batters Burgos
By Doug Fischer (March 4, 2007) Photo © German Villasenor

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CARSON, California – It was billed as a fight of the year candidate and for seven thrilling rounds it was as 122-pound champ Israel Vazquez and bantamweight king Rafael Marquez threw and absorbed some of the best punches and combinations of their accomplished careers, but then, suddenly, shockingly, the plug was pulled on the Showtime-televised showdown when Vazquez informed his corner that he could no longer continue just before the eighth round.

Referee Raul Caiz Jr. called the fight off after seven rounds of action on the advice of Vazquez’s head trainer Freddie Roach to the dismay and confusion of the vocal hardcore crowd assembled at the Home Depot Center. The veteran trainer said Vazquez suffered a broken nose in the first round and had trouble breathing out of it from that point on.

Marquez, who improved to 37-3 (33), is now the junior featherweight champion of the world by technical knockout, but despite the fight’s abrupt ending the Mexico City native had to dig deep and get up off the canvas to win the biggest fight of his career.

After sweeping the first two rounds on the strength of a heavy jab, accurate right hands and a sweet jab-left uppercut-right cross combination that hurt Vazquez at the end of the first and the beginning of the second, Marquez landed a series of accurate shots that sent the classy 122-pound champ reeling in the middle of the third round. Marquez advanced after Vazquez but ran into a short left uppercut on the inside that dropped him hard to the canvas. The lanky boxer-puncher got up on unstable legs, composed himself and fired back to keep a charging Vazquez off of him. The ‘fight of the year’ was officially on.

For the next four stanzas, the 5,155 hardcore fans in attendance were treated to world-class boxing, championship-level fighting, and high-caliber punching and counter-punching as the pace and intensity of the fight increased with each round.

Marquez used his height and reach advantages by sticking and moving from the outside, getting off with a hard jab and straight right from the outside. Vazquez boxed on his toes, in and out, but stood flat footed whenever he got in close where he let loose with a two-fisted body attack. Both fighters landed vicious right crosses and left hooks that momentarily buzzed the other, but whenever one was hurt he was able to rely on footwork, upper body movement and, of course, a lot of heart to stay upright until clear headed enough to fire back.

In rounds six and seven, Vazquez appeared to come on strong, despite catching an inordinate amount of jabs. The Mexico City native who now makes his home in Southern California didn’t slow up a bit even though his face was quickly becoming a bloody misshapen mass of lumps and swelling.

Vazquez’s body attack gradually appeared to take the wind out of Marquez’s sails by the end of the sixth round. If fact, it seemed that the tide of the bout was about to swing in Vazquez’s favor when he hurt Marquez with an inside hook-cross combination near the end of the seventh round (although he was met with a fierce counter-attack just before the round ended), which is why it was so surprising when the junior featherweight champ got up off his stool and walked across the ring to congratulate Marquez on his victory just before the start of the eighth round.

“I stopped the fight,” Roach said. “Israel broke his nose in the first round; he told me right away that it was broken. We knew he couldn’t breathe early on and that’s why we were monitoring the fight closely. Israel wanted me to stop the fight a couple of rounds earlier, but I asked him to suck it up. I thought Marquez was getting tired.”

That was the opinion of most of the ringside press. Although most of the media had Marquez up by a point or two, many had scored rounds six and seven for Vazquez after scoring all but the third round for Marquez.

“[Vazquez] gave me a few more rounds and then he came back to the corner and told me ‘I can’t do this’. That was it. His nose is more important than the fight,” said Roach.

“I was able to breathe through my mouth but I couldn’t get any air at all through my nose,” explained Vazquez, who dropped to 41-4 (31). “I was taking a lot of shots for that reason. If Marquez wants to fight again, I would be happy to get in the ring with him.”

Marquez, the younger brother of featherweight standout Juan Manuel, who challenges Marco Antonio Barrera for a 130-pound title in two weeks, says he welcomes a rematch.

“He deserves a rematch; he dropped me and he’s the only fighter to have ever hurt me,” said Marquez, who added that he was unaware that he had broken Vazquez’s nose. “I didn’t know [it was broken]. I just came with my fight plan. I was surprised when they stopped it. I thought it was close.”

It was indeed a closely contested prize fight, once of the best of the year so far.

“All of Mexico should be happy,” said Marquez.

All real fight fans should be happy with the seven rounds Vazquez and Marquez gave them. They should be even happier if a rematch can be made this year.

In the co-featured bout of the evening, flyweight title-holder Vic Darchinyan improved to 28-0 (22) with a 12th-round stoppage of former 108-pound title holder Victor Burgos.

It was a frustrating night for Darchinyan, who made the sixth defense of his IBF belt, as his challenger who is normally known for his aggression employed a hit-and-run strategy from the opening round until the bout was stopped due to an accumulation of punishment one minute and 27 seconds into the final round.

Burgos, from Puebla, Mexico, faded in and out of consciousness after the bout was stopped and was taken to nearby Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Harbor City for precautionary measures on the advice of ringside physician Dr. Paul Wallace.

“He was slumping in his chair after the fight,” said Wallace. “He took a lot of punches, heavy punches, in the fight and he wasn’t responding well to the question that we were asking him. We wanted to act quickly and get him to a hospital. He’s going to get a full evaluation brain scan.”

“Mexico should be very proud of Victor Burgos; I think he is a hero,” Darchinyan said after the fight. “He was very tough. His movements gave me difficulties.”

From the opening bell, Darchinyan stalked the constantly moving Burgos, flamboyantly winding up with bolo-style uppercuts. In the second round, Darchinyan loaded up with two lefts that landed on the top of the challenger’s head, setting up an uppercut to the body that put Burgos down on one knee for an eight count.

Once the bout resumed, Darchinyan charged Burgos and let his right and left hands go in exaggerated sling-shot fashion, landing a few more lefts, but missing with many whipping shots.

Darchinyan continued to stalk and assault Burgos with single power punches – mostly swatting left haymakers – in the middle rounds, even showboating a little bit, but Burgos, who dropped to 39-15-3 (23), occasionally managed to land a few counter right hands that got a rise out of the majority Mexican and Mexican-American crowd.

In the fifth and sixth rounds, Darchinyan landed hard left uppercuts that stunned Burgos, who used all the savvy and guile that comes from having 55 pro fights to weather the Australia-based Armenian’s follow-up punches.

In the seventh round, Burgos was a little more aggressive and it paid off as he caught Darchinyan off balanced and knocked his southpaw tormentor into the ropes, almost a scoring a technical knockdown and getting a rise out of the crowd. Burgos tried to capitalize on the moment, but it would be his only of the fight.

From the eighth round on, Burgos absorbed a gradual beating that became hard to watch in the final two rounds as the Mexican veteran constantly retreated and stayed upright only out of pride until his legs finally gave out.