JIHOON KIM vs MIGUEL VAZQUEZ

The Top Rank organisation pledged to deliver quality shows in its series on Fox Sports Espanol, but tonight’s double-header in Texas is the best yet. This is simply a superb show, with Korean slugger Jihoon Kim meeting Mexican stylist Miguel Vazquez in the lightweight championship main event, while undefeated Miguel Angel “Mikey” Garcia faces his biggest test against Cornelius Lock in a featherweight title eliminator.
 
The official betting line had Kim slightly favoured but money has shown strongly for this exciting if wide-open banger. “He gets hit with everything but, boy can he punch,” Kim’s promoter Art Pelullo noted in a recent telephone conversation.
 
A fighter with Kim’s style must burn out eventually. The question is: When will it happen? We should enjoy him while we can.
 
Vazquez is a smart boxer who has fought at junior welter and even at welterweight and his losses were all to bigger fighters, Saul Alvarez (twice) and Timothy Bradley. In his biggest win, on Friday Night Fights, Alvarez comfortably outpointed Breidis Prescott after getting dropped by a heavy left jab in the opening round. We now know, though, that Prescott, although he can be dangerous, really isn’t anything special.
 
Kim has a KO streak going. He fights like a man who is very sure that no matter how badly things may be going for him, once he lands a big shot his troubles will be over. He was being outboxed for round after round by Zolani Marali in South Africa, but Kim never gave up and finally caught and stopped his man in the ninth round. We have seen Kim rocked and staggered, getting hit so often that we wonder how he can keep taking the punches, and still he has come back to knock out the other man.
 
In his fight with Tyrone Harris, Kim had a dreadful first two rounds but you could see by the third that his pressure and body punches were breaking Harris down and by the fifth the more skilled boxer really had nothing left to offer.
 
I can see Vazquez making Kim look crude and clumsy, making him miss and picking him off, but one wonders if he can keep Kim at bay for 12 rounds. Vazquez was able to box rings round Prescott, but the Colombian fighter tends to be one-paced and predictable whereas Kim throws punches from everywhere and keeps winging so that, eventually, something has to land.
 
The Texas setting, with its Mexican-American flavour, should be to Vazquez’s advantage, but Kim has won in South Africa, and he stopped a skilled boxer in Marali, who boxed in the orthodox and southpaw postures, outclassed the Korean fighter in several rounds yet still got nailed.
 
I see this as an even fight. Either man can win. I think that Kim’s willpower, his enormous drive for victory, can get him through. I fully expect Kim’s run of success to come to a shuddering halt — but not just yet.
 
The Garcia versus Lock match is another excellent one. I think that the younger, improving Garcia has the sturdiness and technical soundness to box and punch his way to victory against a dangerous southpaw veteran, but, again, this, to me, is an almost even fight. Lock can punch — his last three wins were all by KO — but I see a bit more steadiness and consistency in Garcia’s method.
 
Wagering suggestions on these fights in the subscribers’ section.