A survey arrived in my inbox some time ago. It bore the look of a get-out-the-Pacquiao-vote initiative. It was respectfully worded, though, and so I replied. At the end it asked my favorite fighter currently practicing and my favorite fighter all-time. Answers? Israel Vazquez and Marvin Hagler.
My reply was typed quickly – therefore honestly – at 5:30 on a Tuesday morning. In the weeks that followed, I did not once think about the survey. Then Saturday night came. Around 8:45 PT, I understood the symmetry of my answer. Watching Vazquez in later rounds gives me the same thrill as watching Hagler in his most famous round.
Hagler in his final moments with Tommy Hearns is the same willfulness I see every time Vazquez fights. There was plenty of that Saturday night on Fox Sports Espa?ol (canal 439 en Phoenix) when Israel Vazquez wore down the very game Angel Priolo, stopping him at 2:10 of round nine. The fight happened in Los Angeles’ Nokia Theater and was supposed to be a homecoming for Vazquez after 19 months of inactivity, dizziness and eye operations.
That Rafael Marquez’s comeback fight happened on TV Azteca 7 and Vazquez’s comeback fight happened on Fox Sports Espa?ol, while Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s comeback fight happened before HBO pay-per-viewers, ends the debate once and for all about life’s fairness. But never mind.
There were other troubles Saturday. Let’s start with trainer Rudy Perez’s initiative to reform Vazquez into something like a latter-day Marco Antonio Barrera. It needs to be abandoned. Vazquez has never had Barrera’s knack for clean punching. Even when he was more of a brawler than a boxer Barrera was an accurate striker, finding the target whenever he aimed, even with his eyes closed – which they often were.
Vazquez has a knack for ragged punching and hitting you all over. Perez needs to work within that framework while helping Vazquez protect himself. He needs to respect Vazquez’s feral but wise desire to get his shoulders and mitts on every opponent.
Feral but wise? Yes. When he is surging forward, bodying an opponent, Vazquez is best – if for no other reason than he is comfortable. Here’s a better reason: When he’s inside his opponent’s punches Vazquez is safer.
Jab, jab, skip back, touch lead toe, reset. That’s the method Barrera used to thrive after 2001. It does not work for Vazquez. “El Magnifico’s” skips are stumbles by comparison. His legs, which looked less than stellar Saturday, are taxed heavily by backwards motion. It’s not his way.
From outside Vazquez is also frighteningly vulnerable. He’s forced to land a jab to go in. He drops his lead hand before his head and gets nailed by right crosses. When Angel Priolo – now 0-7 (6 KOs) in his last seven fights – buckles you with right crosses, you’re fighting in a way that makes a little drool run out the corner of Rafael Marquez’s mouth when he sees the letters IV.
Vazquez needs to be told he doesn’t have to land the jab. He simply has to get the left hand out and high on his way in. He can slip to his left or cross his right foot over. And grind. Let the man grind! Vazquez taking punches outside and staying outside is a kid forced to follow up a plateful of broccoli with a plateful of broccoli. Let him have some dessert.
Stop with the head-turning while we’re at it. If you’re not picking-up an opponent’s right cross in time to keep it from striking you square on the cheek, you’re not taking anything off the punch by turning your head to the right. Whatever force of your opponent’s punch you reduce, you make up for by looking 90 degrees away. That goes for you too, Librado Andrade.
What good did standing outside and catching right hands do Vazquez, Saturday? I’ll tell you. Take your left finger and place it on the center of your left eyebrow. Now trace the line of your brow to the outside corner of your left eye. There, that gives you a feel for the length of the cut Vazquez had by the seventh round. It almost got the fight stopped and Priolo’s arm raised.
Then Vazquez leaped off his stool to begin the eighth and tried to end things quickly. Priolo, who looked like 70 times the fighter his record indicated, fought back well. Then Vazquez became Vazquez. Everything changed.
Fighting one-eyed is a dangerous thing to do. But when he’s at his most comfortable, Vazquez employs a style – not unlike Joe Frazier’s – that can be pulled-off with one eye. Once you’re inside your opponent’s cross – left shoulder in his chest, corralling him rightward – you can fight by feel as much as sight. Especially if you fight as a pepper grinder.
That is the image that comes to mind in the final round of every Vazquez victory. He takes your strength and pride and treats them as peppercorns in a grinder. He turns and mills. Ck-ck-ck sounds emanate. Then he spreads your dusty film on the canvas. Saturday night Priolo wore the same look as Jhonny Gonzalez and Rafael Marquez. And John “The Beast” Mugabi.
Struggling with his left eye – and surgically reconstructed right eye and nose? – Vazquez said to yet another opponent, “You are going to hit me, and I am going to hit you, and we will do this until one of us stops.” Is it wrong to see that as a revival of Hagler’s you-better-hit-me-with-the-ring-post ethic?
I don’t think so. In what may unfortunately be remembered as the Mayweather Era, Israel Vazquez will not go underappreciated if I can help it.
Hagler fought with an understandable resentment; Vazquez fights with an inexplicable joy. That’s why Marvelous is my favorite prizefighter of all time, but El Magnifico is my favorite person in all of prizefighting.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter.com/bartbarry
