SONSONA-VAZQUEZ JR AFTERMATH: BAD PERFORMANCE EXPOSES TEAM'S WEAKNESS
By Dong Secuya
PhilBoxing.com
Mon, 09 Jun 2014
SAN FRANCISCO ? In what was hoped to be his defining moment fighting in front of thousands of rabid boxing fans at the world's most famous arena, the Madison Square Garden in New York, and potentially viewed by millions of TV audience from around the world, former Filipino world champion Marvin Sonsona failed to impress against his rematch with former Puerto Rican champion Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. Yes he won ? but he won ugly ? and it was the kind of fight you would rather forget.
?I know my performance was bad. But I had to do what I did because my arms and shoulders went numb from the third round onwards,? Sonsona told Philboxing when he arrived at the San Francisco International Airport from a 6-hour flight from New York Sunday afternoon, where he, together with his manager Dr Rajan Yraola and Yraola's wife Christine, will take a connecting Philippine Airlines flight in the evening back to the Philippines. ?Additionally, Vazquez hit me hard in my left arm that worsen my condition,? Sonsona added.
Sonsona started the fight strong throwing out beautiful combinations and caught Vazquez with a body punch that sent the Puerto Rican to the canvas at the 1:50 mark of the first round, silencing the raucus pro-Puerto Rican crowd of more 21,000. Sonsona, however, failed to capitalize the early knockdown and although he appeared to hurt Vazquez as the fight progressed, the fight became ugly and a little difficult to watch when both fighters continually clinched as the bout looked more like a wresting match than boxing resulting in takedowns, clashes of heads, hitting after breaks, and at one point Sonsona's nose smacked directly to Vazquez's head that sent the GenSan native reeling towards the ropes.
In the end, Sonsona escaped with a victory by split decision when two judges, Julie Lederman and Michael Pernick, favored him with a 96-92 score while Judge John Poturaj gave Vazquez the edge with a 96-92 score. In the punch statistics, Sonsona was the busier fighter with 463 punches thrown / 120 connected to Vazquez's 324 thrown / 111 connected. Sonsona unleashed more power punches at 285 / 104 connected to Vazquez's 222 thrown and 94 connected and more jabs at 178 / 16 to Vazquez's 102 / 17.
The team however was unanimous in saying that Sonsona's training regimen needs to be improved. Numbing and gassing out is a sure sign of deficient training methods. Sonsona was fighting, not only with Vazquez, but also with the scales and hunger as making weight became the most important factor days or even weeks before the fight. ?I will eat the entire New York City tomorrow, an irritated Sonsona joked on the eve of the weighin. True enough, starving Sonsona ate $250 worth of food right after the weighin and again overate right after the fight.
?We need to have a real good training program for Sonsona's next fight,? Sonsona's Filipino promoter Sammy Gello-ani told Philboxing who confided that they are in a lookout for a good conditioning coach for Sonsona. ?I talked to my partner Sampson Lewkowicz and we both agreed that's what we will do,? Gello-ani said.
?We can get Memo Heredia, why not?? Sonsona's Filipino manager Dr Rajan Yraola jokingly told Philboxing earlier, referring to the controvesial conditioning coach who handled Juan Manuel Marquez's conditioning during Marquez's 4th fight with Manny Pacquiao and Marquez's last fight against Mike Alvarado that created a lot of buzz and allegations that Heredia could have given Marquez performance enhancing drugs. Heredia was also the conditioning coach of Vazquez in the Sonsona fight.
?A win is a win,? Sonsona's trainer Jun Agrabio said. ?I'm sure we will improve our performance in future fights.?
The key to all this however is Sonsona himself. Noted for his rebellious ways, Sonsona told Philboxing that in his next fight, if it will be held in the United States, ?I will come at least two months earlier and I will diligently train for two months here for my next fight.? ? That to members of his team and to his supporters, is music to the ears.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Dong Secuya.
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