WILFREDO VAZQUEZ JR. KO4 MARVIN SONSONA

It was man versus boy, a mismatch, as Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. blew through Marvin Sonsona in four rounds to capture the vacant WBO junior featherweight title on Saturday in Puerto Rico.

Now we know that Sonsona is not and never will be the new Manny Pacquiao. The 19-year-old southpaw from Pacquiao’s hometown of General Santos City in the Philippines looked, I have to say, like a scared kid as Vazquez marched confidently towards him.

When Sonsona went down from a left hook to the body it looked to me as if he had simply given up.

Vazquez, 25, was powerful and impressive but he looked much the bigger man against a boxer moving up two weight divisions. It was like a bigger animal attacking a smaller one.

Sonsona had been able to hurt people with his left hand at 115 pounds. The punches had no effect on the muscled and menacing Vazquez. Once the Puerto Rican boxer knew he had nothing to fear from Sonsona’s left hand, the fight was over. Sonsona’s boyish features took on a look of anxiety. He was in a fight he couldn’t win, and I suspect that he knew it from very early in the proceedings. When did I write “fight over” in my notebook? In the second round. Sonsona won the opening round on all three judges’ cards, but Vazquez took over in the second. Vazquez was walking down the teenager, backing him up, hurting him to the body when the Filipino boxer went to the ropes.

I thought that Sonsona might have been able to keep boxing and moving if he couldn’t hurt Vazquez, but the Puerto Rican fighter was closing the distance too quickly. It was as if Sonsona forgot how to box. That’s what can happen when a fighter is being subjected to pressure, can’t hurt his opponent and is being hurt himself. Technique can fall apart. Sonsona was reduced to covering up on the ropes, gloves in front of his face, like a schoolboy novice. Vazquez slammed punches underneath the elbows into his opponent’s willowy body and snapped back Sonsona’s head with right hands through the middle.

To be brutally honest, Sonsona was exposed. We cannot be sure how a fighter will react in his biggest, toughest fight. To me, Sonsona was flying distress signals (as old-time British writers would put it) far too early.

Vazquez looked tremendous, though. He has been wonderfully well trained by his ex-champ dad, Wilfredo Vazquez Sr., and he looked the perfect fighting machine — it’s not often one can say this, but it was a flawless performance by Vazquez. One had to feel happy for the young man and his proud father, and it was a great night for Vazquez’s promoter, Tuto Zabala Jr., who always believed in his boxer and is now in the pleasant position of having an interest in a fighter who has starpower potential. For a boxer with no amateur experience, Vazquez is exceptionally well schooled. He has the look of a born fighter. Maybe it is in the bloodline: like father, like son.

I wrote in the preview that the two questions regarding Sonsona were whether he would be able to carry his punching power up two weight classes and whether he would be able to take the blows of a man much bigger than anyone he had faced. Now we know the answers: “no” to both. I picked Sonsona but at least I got it right in a confident opinion that the fight wouldn’t go the distance. Sometimes one takes a leap of faith in going for a relatively untested underdog. One’s faith can be misplaced, as was mine in this fight, although I never expected Sonsona to wilt as quickly as he did.

As good as Vazquez looked, though, I think there are questions to be answered concerning him, too. He has yet to come through a gruelling fight in which he has to overcome adversity. Perhaps he has it in him to do so. Maybe he will even go on to greatness. It is, I think, too early to tell. After all, this was only his 19th bout. You can’t knock success, though, and the sweet smell of success was heavy in the air on a great night for Vazquez, his father and all Puerto Rican boxing fans.