Although raw power is generally associated with the heaviest weight divisions, some of the biggest punchers in boxing today perform from 122 pounds down to 108. They are the “Little Big Men” of the fight game.
Just their names conjure up visions of brutality in the ring. Daniel Ponce De Leon, Vic Darchinyan, Jorge Arce, Alexander Munoz, Rafael Marquez and Brian Viloria, all tiny packages of TNT with tremendous knock out power. So are Israel Vasquez, Jhonny Gonzalez and Somsak Sithchatchawal.
If you ignore size and measure boxing power by pounds of pressure per-square-inch, these guys stack up with the big boys. Take Viloria.
Viloria was part of a 2000 U.S. Olympic boxing team that included Jermain Taylor, Jeff Lacy and Rocky Juarez. When their coach, Tom Mustin, tried to measure each fighter’s power, the bag they used could not register beyond a certain limit. So Mustin had its recalibrated.
Seven years later, Mustin, who has coached amateurs for over 30 years out of the Tacoma Boxing Club in Washington, still remembers the day his Olympians took their power tests.
“Jeff Lacy hit the hardest,” Mustin recalled. “Then it was Michael Bennett (201 pounds), David Jackson (132), Clarence Vinson (119) and Viloria (106). Brian could really punch.”
Left in Viloria’s power wake was Taylor and Juarez.
A man who once scoffed at the lower weight divisions but is now a born-again believer in the Little Big Men, is Gary Shaw, who promotes Rafael Marquez, Darchinyan, Rolando Reyes and the Donaire brothers.
When Shaw went to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, he was chief operating officer for Main Events and looking to sign talent.
“I knew Viloria had power and would make a good pro, but I wasn’t going to sign him,” said Shaw, who came out of the Olympics with Americans Lacy and Juarez and Mexican Francisco Bojado. “Back then I didn’t know much about the lower classes. I didn’t think there was enough money in the smaller men for me to promote them.”
Needless to say, Shaw will be very happy with the money his fighter Marquez will make against Vasquez Saturday night in what most feel should be a prime candidate for “Fight of the Year.”
Raw power stats for the nine Little Big Men above are excellent indicators of the mule- kick in their fists. Together, they have a combined 251 knockouts among their 308 victories, an 81 per cent rate.
Not only are they powerful, but they are exciting to watch. In a few cases, they are borderline fanatics about punishing their opponents.
Arce, who has scored 35 knockouts in his 46 wins, is the most extreme example. “El Travieso is a vicious finisher and a mean prick inside the ropes,\” said Bruce Trampler, long-time matchmaker for Top Rank, which promotes Arce.
Since losing to future Hall of Famer Michael Carbajal in 1999 on stunning knock out in the 11th round of a fight in which Arce led on all cards 98-91, El Travieso has not lost. He has won 26 straight, with 21 coming via knocks. Arce’s back-to-back fights with Adonis Rivas, whom he took a strong disliking to, recalls the viciousness of a Mike Tyson biting Evander Holyfield’s ear, although Arce did his damage legally.
After beating Rivas in a brutal 10th round TKO in December of 2005, Arce said he was angry that his opponent couldn’t go the final rounds because he wanted to beat on him more. So Arce dared Rivas to fight him a quick rematch, which took place 43 days later.
This time Arce battered Rivas so badly that he quit on his stool in the 6th round. That only prompted more fury from El Travieso, who said in the post-fight press conference that “he (Rivas) should have fought to unconsciousness.” Asked about his own slow start to the fight, Arce said it was part of his strategy to stretch Rivas’ punishment out for as long as he could.
“Aside from Arce’s energy and charisma,” said HBO commentator Larry Merchant, “what strikes me about him is his size. From the chest up, he could be a featherweight, or maybe even a lightweight.”
The Australian Darchinyan, with 21 of his 27 fights coming by knockout, is another one who exudes ferocity and defies his weight class (112).
“Vic told me that when he goes to America he loves to spar world champions who are heavier than him,” Shaw said. “He said, ‘I don’t want to spar flyweights. I can’t punch them because I don’t want to hurt them,’”
Over the last three years, the unbeaten Darchinyan (27-0) has sparred with bigger fighters in Vasquez (three times), power-packing junior lightweight Edwin Valero, Robert Guerrero (126) and junior welterweight Lovemore Ndou.
“Vic has already said he wants to move up and fight the winner of Marquez-Vasquez, and his long-range goal is to fight Manny Pacquiao,” Shaw said. “Could he go up and retain his power? I don’t know. But I’ll tell you this, if he does go up, he will give his heart and spill his guts to try and win. He is absolutely fearlesss.”
Since he signed Darchinyan a year ago, Shaw has used the Aussie’s punching power and non-stop aggressiveness as a way to promote him into a star — with a little help from Vic’s “friends,” Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo.
“When I first signed Vic, it was not easy building him up,” Shaw said. “HBO and Showtime had no clue as to who he was. He got his big break in the Corrales-Castillo weight fiasco (fight cancelled due to Corrales’ failure to make weight). Darchinyan was on the under card (against Diosbado Gabi) and he came in and put on a helluva fight for the fans (8th round TKO)”
Moving up in weight class is what many of the top smaller-size boxers are forced to do if they want to make more money, said Gary Gittelsohn, who manages Viloria and junior bantamweight champ Fernando Montiel.
Montiel suffered just his second loss in 32 fights when he went up in weight class last year to challenge bantamweight champion Gonzalez, a much bigger man.
“In the current landscape for lighter fighters, you have to do this to get the exposure you need,” Gittlesohn said. “Smaller guys don’t have the luxury of fighting easier fights like the bigger guys.”
Gonzalez, like the huge welterweight Paul Williams, is something of a freak for a bantamweight. He has a 71-inch wing span, bigger than Pacquiao (67), Jose Luis Castillo (69), Corrales (70), Miguel Cotto (67), Marco Antonio Barrera (70), and Ricky Hatton (65). Gonzalez’s reach compares favorably to Erik Morales and Floyd Mayweather at 72 inches, Oscar De La Hoya (73), and even former heavyweight champ Chris Byrd (74).
In quest of a big money fight, Gonzalez himself moved up to junior featherweight last September to challenge Vasquez. Gonzalez floored Vasquez in the 4th and 6th rounds, then the courageous defending champion got up off the canvas and knocked his opponent down in the 7th before scoring an action-charged comeback with a 10th round TKO.
These Little Big Men can fight.
Marquez, like his opponent Saturday, is a brawler, but he does have very good boxing skills when he needs them, which isn’t often, given his heavy hands. Of his 36 victories, 32 have come by knockout, including two against hard-hitters in their own right — Silence Mabuza, who has 15 KOs in 19 victories, and Mark “Too Sharp” Johnson, who in 2001 was in his prime with a 40-1 record when Marquez won a split decision. Four months later, Marquez scored an 8th round TKO over Johnson.
In the latest Ring Magazine pound-for-pound ratings, Marquez is ranked 7th, ahead of Joe Calzaghe, Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto, in that order.
Among the other Mighty Mites, Munoz, whose only two losses came to Martin Castillo, has 27 knockouts among his 29 victories, and scored KOs in his first 23 career fights. De Leon, who won his first 21 fights by KO, has 28 stoppages in his 30 victories.
De Leon is an especially quick worker, having fought only 110 rounds in 30 fights, an average of just over three and a half per bout. Sithchatchawal has 38 KOs among his 47 victories, including a 10th round TKO of Mahyar Monshipour last March, a fight of such ferocity that it earned the two 122-pounders Ring’s “Fight of the Year.”
With the heavyweights, cruiserweights and light heavies lacking for star power and excitement, Shaw thinks the Little Big Men can grab the boxing game’s spotlight.
“I think these fights Saturday night (Vasquez-Marquez, Darchinyan-Victor Burgos) will give the lower weights a chance to make inroads on the bigger guys,” Shaw said.
Another scrapper from long ago, Mark Twain, summed it up best: “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”
And that about sizes up today’s power-packing Little Big Men.
