Jorge's Arce career

One of the hardest punchers all-time at 108 IMO...pretty good resume also, maybe top 10, maybe not.

Commendable longevity seeing how damn easy he is to tag.

Quite overhyped by Arum...cause he was a character and one of the few lighter guys at the time people would watch.
He should have never held the interim title at fly for so long but he is Mexican and Jose was happy to collect the extra fees.

He would have never been afforded so many opportunities or allowed to come back so many times if he had been some obscure Asian or south american...so in that sense he has overachieved.

Formidable little fighter in his heyday...massive punch, very good chin and a ridiculous weight cutter, which allowed him to dwarf a lot of opponents at 108-112.

Short of the very best at lightfly..miles off the very best at fly..but an solid and exciting fighter nonetheless.

 

Vis-à-vis his talent? Overachieved, certainly.

Vis-à-vis how heavily promoted and hyped he was (by HBO in particular) well beyond the scope of his talent? Underachieved. He was thought of as someone who could move up in weight indefinitely and remain successful (like Pacquiao wound up doing - Pacquiao, who some actually picked Arce to eventually beat. Seriously...)

His opposition faced (including losses) is stellar and has been for his entire career.

Omar Nino Romero (eventual two time champion) in his fifth bout at the age of sixteen.

Tough ******* Victor Burgos the next year.

Still-dangerous exiting legend Michael Carbajal a few days after turning 20.

Then there is his WBO title reign, wherein he was very active - and while not all the contenders were especially fearsome he did twice beat a very good fighter in Hussein.

Then there's Mijares, who at the time was really an elite talent. Then a handful of solid wins working his way back up to his next loss to a top fighter in Darchinyan. Hell, even since then most of his opponents have been better than their record reflects (like Santos, who's been thrown in with a real murderer's row the last few years), or have good name value despite being faded (like Castillo) or are just solid guys one is expected to lose to when shot to bits (like Angkota and Parra).

Definitely the latter. As illustrated above, most of his best opponents beat him.

It's still been a good career.

And this is coming from someone who almost constantly rooted against him and became delirious when Mijares tooled him.

 

Aaaahhhh Mijares. The black eye on my career as an internet analyst.

 

He was as good as advertised in 2007/8.

Rapid decline, after he got baffled - and thrashed - by Darchinyan.

To do what he did to that version of Arce he had to have been genuinely very good. He also dominated in all of his subsequent defenses until Darchinyan and barely lost a round (regardless of what the official scorecards show).

 

Oh, he had the skills. I was on the bandwagon back in the days when Amsterdam was spamming the General Forum with his "God Mijares" nonsense. Honestly, he was one of the more talented fighters of the past 5-10 years I feel. I will maintain that to this day. I just seem to have mistaken his school-yard arrogance for mere poise and confidence. There's more to boxing than simply technical acumen. The mental aspect will always prove most stringent at the top level of the sport. He's the main reason I've ceased to go too in-depth on my thoughts on the recent crowd, especially if I have hopes for them. I don't want to be made to look the fool again.

 

You need to unjade yourself somehow.

 

Maybe I'm just delusional, but I firmly reject the notion that we were made to look fools at all (a few idiots on the GF bumping Amsterdam's threads just to remark "LOL MIJARES FANS!!" notwithstanding).

As you say, he had the technical ability.

How were any of us to know that all it would take was one awkward slugger to make him completely unravel? That sort of x-factor is unknowable until it manifests itself as it did; and in no way should be a reflection on the analytical abilities of those who had tipped Mijares for greater and lengthier success.

The people whose analytical abilities should be called into question are the ones who asserted with confidence that Arce would go chasing down Pacquiao and knock him out at super featherweight.

 

For every Vernon Forrest and Willie Pep, there's a....

 

I don't believe I am jaded, actually. Just much more conscious and careful of what I say in regards to things I may be ignorant of. Unless I'm just being facetious, which is about 50% of the time I post.

If you're referring to my views on the modern game, those are legitimate, well-construed determinations stemmed from watching literally thousands of hours of fight footage. I think so, anyway. But then maybe I am just a tad jaded after all.

 

I hear what you're saying, and on one hand I agree. On the other hand, it's precisely for that reason (the one highlighted) that I've ceased to make confident predictions on the future of certain fighters. I'll acknowledge if a fighter looks to have potential, solid fundamentals, special physical gifts, etc., but what I won't do is deem them the next big thing. They have to legitimately prove themselves by overcoming adversity, or if not, they need to be proven against the best.

It's why I'm more comfortable waiting for a fighter's career to end, or at least get to the point where a reasonable observation can be made of their prime, for me to let my full thoughts be known.

On a related note, this only applies to fighters I have hopes for. If I believe a fighter to legitimately be a hype-job I will call him out just as fast as the next guy. I'm pretty good about picking those out. Linares and Jacobs being prime examples.

 

Jacobs might not be a hype job. He took on a very underrated and very experienced/complete fighter in Pirog. He had more balls just for taking the fight than 90% of active prospects. Sure, he got knocked out, but that doesn't mean he can't carve a nice niche for himself in the upcoming MW division of Lemieux, Golovkin, Pirog, Macklin, Lee, Korobov etc.

And El, well we know the modern fight game is lacking. IB knows it very well and he still dedicates oodles of his time on prospect watch. Just because things done changed doesn't mean you should lose the thrill of a great night of live boxing. Hell, if crusty ****s like b.b. and janitor can get all fired up about a Khan-Maidana then so can you.

 

The fact that Jacobs may have a chance at carving out a nice career just kind of proves my point about the ghastly era we're in. It's not just the fact that he was knocked out, it was his entire performance leading up to the KO. I saw absolutely nothing that would lead me to believe this guy was anything more than a run-of-the-mill hype-job. A decent athlete with no real fundamentals or schooling.

However, you may be right. I don't take these things as seriously as I used to, but perhaps the next step is to learn to enjoy the modern game just for the thrill of the unknown, even if I don't hold high hopes for the fights/practitioners involved. Again, there are a select few I'm keeping my eye on, though.

 

why is this thread in classic?

 

It's not like we're talking about a guy that still has the better part of his career ahead of him, Leonard. It's been pushing on a decade since he reigned as the WBC light flyweight champ. If we can talk about top tier guys like Pac, Holy, BHOP, Mayweather, we can certainly talk about lesser careers in their twilight that were meaningful like Arce's, I'd think. 64 fights, looking at the guys he's been in with, he's a classic now. :good