Despite it's historical place in boxing as one of "the original 8" divisions the Lightweight division has somewhat lost it's flair and star power in recent years with the move north of top fighters like Juan Manuel Marquez. Despite this however the division is actually packed with genuine world class talent such as current IBF champion Miguel Vazquez (31-3, 13) who defends his title this weekend against mandatory challenger Marvin Quintero (25-3, 21).
Whilst he may not being a big name in the sport, Vazquez (also known as "Titere" of "Puppet") is one of the sports truly over-looked fighters who lives by the old adage of "hit and don't get hit", which stands out even more when you realise that he's an out and out Mexican.
The 25 year old Vazquez debuted as just a teenager way back in 2006, losing his debut fight to current WBC Light Middleweight champion Saul "Canelo" Alvarez via a close split decision. Vazquez built well after his debut loss and ran up 18 successive wins to move to 18-1 (9) before running in to current WBO Welterweight champion Timothy Bradley, who scored a clear victory over Vazquez in a bout for the WBC Youth Light Welterweight world title.
After losing to Bradley, Vazquez won his following 3 bouts, claiming the lightly regarded WBC FECARBOX Light Welterweight title in the process before losing in a rematch to Saul "Canelo" Alvarez over 10 rounds. Since then however Vazquez has dropped down to Lightweight and really began to make a name for himself with 10 straight wins, including a decision win over the then unbeaten Breidis Prescott.
Alongside the win over Prescott, Vazquez has also gone on to claim the IBF Lightweight title (defeating exciting South Korean Ji-Hoon Kim to claim the title) and defend it 3 times with victories over Ricardo Dominguez, Leonardo Zappavigna and Ammeth Diaz.
In terms of his style Vazquez is very slippery. He can either fight at range disrupting his opponents with his long, accurate jab or he can stand in the pocket, moving and countering at will, with either body movement or foot movement. He hasn't any real power but he is alarmingly accurate and really frustrating for opponents. It also helps Vazquez that, at 5'10" he is tall and long allowing him to dictate the pace of the action with his natural advantages as well as his skills.
With Vazquez seen as the talented pure boxer, it may be fair to say that Quintero is much more of a banger, and his record reflects that with 21 stoppage wins from his 25 victories and an over-all KO rate of 75%. Despite this however his competition has been rather limited with just a solitary stand out victory standing beside his 3 losses.
Quintero debuted back in 2004 as a 17 year old and after winning his first 4 bouts he suffered his first loss, an opening round stoppage to the debuting Balam Castellanos (who would win just 1 of his next 5 bouts). Despite this set back Quintero rebuilt his career running off 12 straight victories (9 by T/KO) to move to 15-1 (11). Despite his growing record his most notable victory up to that point was an 8 round decision over the limited Wes Ferguson.
Just as it seemed that Quintero was about to get his career on track he would suffer his second career loss as Tyrone Harris stopped him in round 8 on a ShowBox Broadcast. Despite his reputation as a big puncher Quintero was unable to intimidate Harris who repeatedly landed solid, hurtful blows on Quintero before forcing the stoppage. Overall it was an embarrassing performance by Quintero and sadly for the challenger the most obvious sign that Vazquez will beat him with his jab and movement, two things Harris used wonderfully.
After his second loss Quintero once again started to rebuild, this time scoring 4 wins before stepping up a level and being stopped by Daniel Attah (who incidentally went on to fight, and lose to, Vazquez himself) in 2 rounds. Once again this was a case of stepping up to fringe level and losing, badly, for Quintero who seemingly found his own level.
Thankfully for Quintero he is now on a 5 fight winning streak, including a solid victory last time out against the highly ranked Filipino Al Sabaupan in what is easily the stand out victory on Quintero's record. Sadly his lack of quality wins doesn't fill me with much expectation going into this bout.
From what footage I've seen Quintero is limited, wild and whilst he certainly has power he doesn't seem to have the ability to land it against someone like Vazquez who will play the role of matador to the bull like Quintero. If Quintero can land a bomb we might see Vazquez troubled, but the champion has faced bigger punchers and made the look like amateurs at times (including Ji-Hoon Kim and Breidis Prescott).
As a big fan of Vazquez I'd like to see him make a statement here, and whilst he should win with relative ease I'd like to see him hunt a stoppage if he hurts Quintero rather than just putting on a masterclass. For Quintero to win he will need to show a lot more than he's ever shown so far.
Prediction-Vazquez by Unanimous Decision
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