"Controversial Fight #1": Ronald Wright vs Fernando Vargas

Round 1: Vargas 10-9 Wright
Round 2: Vargas 9-10 Wright
Round 3: Vargas 10-9 Wright
Round 4: Vargas 10-9 Wright
Round 5: Vargas 9-10 Wright
Round 6: Vargas 9-10 Wright
Round 7: Vargas 10-9 Wright
Round 8: Vargas 9-10 Wright
Round 9: Vargas 9-10 Wright
Round 10: Vargas 10-9 Wright
Round 11: Vargas 10-10 Wright
Round 12: Vargas 10-9 Wright

Final Score: Vargas 115-114 Wright

First off, everytime I watch this fight I'm wowed. This most be the third time I've watched this fight and I'm bowled over by the performances of both men and the sheer amount of action in this fight. First some background and what would happen after to put this fight into some perspective. Vargas was coming off big wins over Marquez and Campas, stopping both in the process and would go onto fight Quartey in his next fight. Wright on the other hand had just fought Derrick Graham following his "controversial" loss to Harry Simon and would go onto fight Bronco McKart after this fight.

Anyway as I stated I was bowled over by both mens performance, Vargas was the younger fighter by some distance and Wright had the much longer professional fight career. Vargas hadn't fought anyone of the same calibre who shared Wright's style. Wright fought what was a very aggressive fight, bringing the action to Vargas behind a typically Winkyish high guard and would use his strength once on the inside to stop Vargas backing him up. This would help to dictate the direction of the fight past round 5, as Vargas started to move much more and struggled once he found himself on the outside. That being said, when the action was taking place inside, I felt Vargas to be getting the better of the action, operating being a very accurate and powerful right hand that was breaking Winky's guard right down the middle. He had great success I thought with the right uppercut to the body and upstairs. He didn't have the success to the body that I think he thought he would, with his hooks to the body slapping against Winky's elbows giving Winky the chance to counter upstairs. None the less, Vargas started to get inside less and less between rounds 5 and 9.

Between these rounds I felt Ronald picked up the vast majority of theme, putting together beautiful combinations, flicking with the right hook and landing a very accurate left hand as he did so. His jab did the job of keeping Fernando on the outside for the majority of time during these rounds, but failed to really land in quantity with Vargas's parrying skills and occasional head movement proving effective. Vargas was only able to make it inside occasionally during this period and wasn't effective enough to take the majority of rounds from Wright who was content to move out of the pocket or stay inside and match Vargas punch for punch once there, out-hustling at times (round 9 stuck in particular).

Coming into Round 10 whatever lead Vargas's team felt he had picked up early on had dissipated and they commanded Vargas to start throwing more and to be more reckless. He had no reason to be reckless as Winky couldn't match Vargas's activity in 10 and 12, despite a nice round 11 where he unsuccessfully tried to regain his mid round momentum. Vargas wasn't as accurate in these rounds as he had been early on but he was throwing so many punches compared to the relatively inactive Wright in 10 and 12 that he would have to have dropped dead to lose them in my opinion. These three rounds really showed Vargas to be deserving of the moniker "Ferocious" as he did enough to seal the win on my card.

I was genuinely pleased with both men's performance, I thought Vargas showed his ability, working being very accurate power puncher on the inside and doing some decent work at mid-range against Winky in the earlier rounds. He showed top-notch stamina and conditioning (as did Winky) considering the bodyshots he took from Wright early on. As for Winky, a man who is lauded for his jab and watertight defence, I was more impressed with his arsenal of combination punching and an impressively accurate right hook and straight left. Their styles gelled incredibly well to give what was a back and forth burner sort of fight. Naturally I will have given spoilers in my dissertation of the fight, but its quite unexpected how Vargas tips the fight in his favour enough in the last few rounds to take the fight, considering the way in which Winky had done enough to take the majority of the middle rounds.

Winky looked very upset with the scores and I kind of have to agree with him, I felt that Debra Barnes (116-112) was way to wide, there was no way I could have given Vargas the benefit of the doubt in any more rounds to reach a score like that. I don't Ledermann was quite on top of it with his scorecard that favoured Winky by 2 points either. It was certainly a very close fight although I felt confident enough to split them on every round except 11.

A very action packed fight and I don't think we see any 22 year olds today fight with the same quality in the game today that Vargas did that night. I think that night would do a number on anybody at 154 today, including Sergio.

Thoughts?

(tl;dr, I had Vargas winning by a sole point).

 

atsch I was meaning to put comment on this in length but forgot, very good point. Something that is probably underrated as far as Winky goes is his strength. Now in both fights with Mosley he well and truly bullied him with his strength, a man I rate as one of the strongest fighters I've seen pound for pound. That being said Shane is a smallish guy for 154 so I can see people not paying Winky's strength that much attention in that fight. In this fight one cannot avoid it. Vargas was a very big man for the weight, truly strong, I thought he was clearly the stronger man versus Oscar, Campas and Marquez, yet in this fight I though Winky was clearly the stronger man and use this strength plus his jab and high guard to force Vargas back. A might feat by all accounts.

 

:good I can think of a lot less exciting fights to rescore.

 

I'm not too sure where I could have given Winky the round to edge it in his favour. I know Ledermann gave him round 3 and I think he may have given him 7. I thought they where relatively close but I think Vargas clearly did enough to earn himself the points there.

 

I intend to do more in what I'm hoping to make my "controversial" fight series, and I'm going to include him fights with Simon, Taylor and possibly Hopkins. Although they won't be for a as my next 3 are going to be Barrera-Morales 1, 2 and 3.