I'm really surprised he fought better against Bam Rodriguez than Phumelela Cafu/Fernando Daniel Martinez. Antonio Vargas won two or three rounds against Jesse "Bam"Rodriguez , and it was a close fight before the knockout in the sixth round. Few people here are praising Antonio Vargas's performance.
It's true, a great performance by Vargas, who consistently landed shots against one of the best fighters around, who is also the number four P4P. Then Rodriguez showed his class by taking the fight his way and winning by knockout with a spectacular combination, but it's fair to congratulate Vargas, I didn't expect such a performance either.
Great performance, great fight, and yeah, if he has those opening couple of rounds against Inoue that he had against Vargas, Bam won't get a chance to turn it around.
I don't think it's that Vargas performed out of his skin. He's always had skills. I predicted he'd be a tough fight for Bam if he could take his power. He was until he couldn't. I think it's merely a case of what I've been saying for quite some time, Bam is a very large weight bully with overrated power, who feasts on shot has beens and featherfists which flatters his overrated skill set. As he moves up, his power will diminish and his skills and his overrated skill set will be exposed. Well we saw exactly that last night.
Yes, I give him props for actually trying to win rather than just survive, unlike Cafu. However, Vargas only won two of the first four rounds in my view. Granted, I thought Bam would win almost every second of the fight, but I don't understand why people think Bam was seriously affected by Vargas' offense. He made adjustments quickly and eventually knocked him out. Yes, Vargas doesn't have a great chin. However, he has shown through his performances against Higa and Guerrero that he's operating at a level similar to the titlist at 118. I think this illustrates what I like to call the "Jones–Tarver effect," where a dominant fighter who normally wins every round with ease has a somewhat competitive rounds, and people convince themselves the other guy won all the competive rounds because they aren't used to seeing that fighter in that position.
This goes into detail on why I think Vargas is on the same level as the 118 titleholders (I still think he’s the weakest of them, but styles make fights and he gave Bam a little something):
I'm not sure how last night showed Bam’s power is overrated. He moved up one weight class, scored a one punch KD of a world champ, then next round scored a one punch KO. If anything it showed he can crack and his power carried. what last night DID show was that Bam has a bit of an issue with someone pressuring him and with someone turning with him when he circles around them. It showed he needs more fights at 118 before he can consider moving up.
I'm surprised to read that. Could you explain that further? To me his skill set looked great. Btw for the first time, he looked very much like lomachenko to me with his footwork and the way he was doing the footwork and head movement with his shoulders relatively squared. Considering the kd and ko i don't think Rodriguez has crazy power, but he has amazing timing and feel for the opponent. With the kd, He took vargas' jab as the cue and it was perfect. Precise, too. Had vargas been prepared for that Shot, it never would have knocked him down. So not power but skill that got the knockout, which is way more impressive to me. Even more in the lower weight classes, where knockouts are less common and easy to get. Also he seemed lighter than his opponent, how is he such a weight Bully? The usual weight bullies are much bigger than their opponents. See canelo in the lower weights, benavidez in middle, zurdo, crawford at the lower weights and so on.
I think he’s definitely a well above average puncher in terms of power. A 7 out of 10 or so. He’s not Inoue but he’s got enough that when he lands the perfect shot, which he seems quite adept at doing, he can score one punch KDs and KOs. If he were a pillowfist it wouldn’t work — see Shakur. Not like Shakur can’t land those perfect shots too, he can and does, but he doesn’t hit hard enough to blast guys to the ground. random comment on Bam’s interview after — anyone notice he didn’t even seem to know what he landed that ended the fight? He said he’d need to watch the film to see what he did, iirc. That’s wild if he’s just that instinctual when everything he does is so technical.
I noticed him almost reflecting back, saying something like 'I usually never throw longer combinations, and now that got the ko'. Maybe wondering if that is a part of his game he should develop more. Definitely had an intereting state of mind after the fight. Very rare to see that
He knew he’d thrown a 4 punch combo, but didn’t know what he’d landed that got the KO. Definitely interesting. I’ve seen people ragging on him for that generic “I’ll fight anyone, whatever my team says” answer about Inoue, but that’s the answer he always gives about any fight. My assumption is that he gives that generic answer so that he doesn’t mess with whatever needs to be done on Hearn’s end. He doesn’t really do much to promote himself, so this would seem logical to let the guy who does promote him do his thing without having to clean up.
