How does Wilfredo Vazquez Jr come back from his morale destroying loss to Arce?

I'm sure I wasn't the only one that was shocked by Vazquez Jr's loss to the mecurial Arce on the Pacquiao-Mosley undercard. I, like many other, predicted a near-decimation of the great Mexican at the hands of the young Puerto Rican. WV2 fought essentially the only fight that Jorge was going to win, a fight where Vazquez went all-out for a stoppage and leaving himself wide open, where ''Papito's'' lack of experience was more than highlighted against a well past his best opponent. Too eager to overly impress, Wilfredo was ground down by El Travieso, caught throughout by a variety of punches high and low, and ultimately stopped in the 12th and final round.

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It's set back the 26 year old son of a legend quite a bit. Seen as his biggest fight, but not neccessarily his best opponent(considering Arce's stock at the time), Jorge was meant to be a springboard, a fight that would catapult Vazquez amongst the big names like Nonito Donaire, Toshiaki Nishioka and Guillermo Rigondeaux. Now it's back to the drawing board as an alternative route to the top is drawn out.

I became a massive fan of his for a variety of factors. With no amateur career behind him whatsoever, he got into the sport late at 23 because he lost his job as a croupier. He quickly set about carving his own legacy, and not living off of his father's name as we've seen many others do. Not impressing with a slick or flashy style, blazing handspeed or goodnight power, he continued improving steadily without having much of a bandwagon. Why Puerto Ricans didn't seem to get behind him to much of an extent is beyond me, maybe because Juanma Lopez resides in the nearby featherweight division perhaps. The most stand out thing about him seemed to be how he visably improved fight-by-fight, showing that he looked a natural and fast learner.

The Bayamon resident had his breakthrough in 2010 against fellow undefeated prospect Marvin Sonsona. Seen as a 50-50 fight going in, WV2 took advantage straight away, picking off Sonsona with solid jabs and point-perfect left hooks under the Filipino southpaw's elbow. Not giving Marvin, who was overly-reliant on the left hand, a moment's respite, he took him out with an inch-perfect left hook-right hand in the fourth round.

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He followed this up with an impressive showing against Hungarian Zsolt Bedak. Bedak started off well, he isn't your typical ''European'' fighter, he does protect himself quite well, but not in the typical shelled up way, and he has quick hands. WV2 had to take his time early on, he couldn't land his patented body shots because of Bedak's defence, so he used his strong jab(powered by his powerful legs) to make Zsolt raise his hands more in order to slot his body blows in after about four rounds. After Bedak realised he couldn't bomb Vazquez out he seemed to lose hope, he knew he wasn't able to box with him and was demoralized because of it, and then broken down efficiently. The damage piled up as the rounds went by and WV2 took him out very impressively in the tenth with some beautiful right hands.

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Following that up with this win over gatekeepker Ivan Hernandez:

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It appeared as though he was ready for bigger things. Solid, not spectacular, it appeared as though bigger things were on the horizon for him. Alas, we now know that is not the case for the moment, what we do know is that he's planning on resuming traaining in the coming weeks, and will be back in a ten-round fight. Do you think it's conceivable that he still could reach the pinnacle of the division? If so, who do you consider to be the appropriate opponents to get him there? What improvements do you believe he needs to make, or is it simply a matter of gaining that added experience and using his defeat as a positive rather than an all-out negative?

 

Wouldn't want to go into your area of expertise. Isn't that why everybody allows me to be the only one who makes threads on super-flyweights?

Yep, people seemed to forget that in the build up to the fight because of how much hype surrounded Sonsona in the Philipeans. Going in it was seen as a genuine 50-50 fight, with Sonsona having the upper hand if anything. Things obviously transpired differently though. While Sonsona mightn't have been all he was cracked up to be, he's certainy more than capable and it showed that WV2 has a lot more to offer than what we saw vs Arce.

I wouldn't call them average myself. Not top of the division types but then again we already knew that they weren't planning on doing that with Vazquez at that stage. Hernandez is a handy gatekeeper, who, granted, is way out of his depth when he fights guys of real quality. I think Bedak is/was fairly decent. I'd be interested in seeing him again, whenever he comes back. The Bedak fight would've been the ideal way for him to fight against Arce IMO, would've been abundantly more effective.

 

Well, it looks like he's coming back with an immediate rematch against Arce. Top Rank are looking to put on a Mexico-Puerto Rico rematch double-header, with Lopez-Salido and Vazquez-Arce, likely to be in November.

 

You are not. At least I don't think so.

I pretty much covered the WV2 situation in the OP, if he doesn't look to bomb Arce out like he did in their first encounter, and fights like he did against Bedak, putting some emphasis on his defence and his jab to set up shots that he actually places rather than wings, he should win. Arce is well past it IMO, and that fight was his Indian Summer, Wilfredo should come out on top so long as he's mentally unscathed.

Salido's underrated, he's much, much smarter than he's been given credit for. He saw how wide open Juanma was for the overhand right, and kept it in his face all night. He knew he had to place his shots and pick them intelligently, rather than just go to all out war like Lopez did. The only thing is, I truely believe Juanma wins if he's disciplined, sticks to his jab and doesn't look to constantly unload. Does he have the patience? That'd be my question, if he does, he'll pull it off(and it'll still be reasonably close), if he doesn't, and fights the same way, he suffers the same fate.

 

Hey, you there, **** off. Trying to steal LP's avat......... oh wait....