WILFREDO VAZQUEZ Jr. TKO10 ZSOLT BEDAK

After two very impressive performances in a row, Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. is looking like the genuine article, a gifted boxer-puncher with speed, savvy and physical strength. He dominated Hungary’s Zsolt Bedak on Saturday night in what I had expected to be a much more difficult fight.

Although both men entered the ring with unbeaten records, Vazquez quickly showed himself to be the superior fighter. Bedak was game, tough and capable, but Vazquez was a class above him. The big odds in favour of Bedak proved to be justified.

Bedak had the amateur background but Vazquez has the natural talent. Although Vazquez has no amateur pedigree, I am now thinking that his father and trainer, Wilfredo Vazquez Sr., probably had him in the gym sparring with experienced boxers for years before the son’s professional debut. Vazquez handles himself in the manner of a boxer with far greater experience.

When Vazquez knocked out Marvin Sonsona he did it with power and pressure. On Saturday, Vazquez moved and countered as Bedak took the fight to him.

Bedak, it seemed to me, thought he could impose his will and break Vazquez’s spirit. He tried to bring pressure, but Vazquez blocked many of his punches and slipped and ducked under others. His jabs, straight right hands, hooks and uppercuts were thrown with excellent form. Bedak fought hard but couldn’t make any kind of significant breakthrough. When Vazquez buckled Bedak’s legs with a big left hook in the fifth it was clear that there was no way that Bedak could win short of a minor miracle. He couldn’t hurt Vazquez, even when he could hit him, and he was being hurt himself. In cases such as this, the outcome soon ceases to be in doubt.

Vazquez’s control of pace and distance was almost perfect. He got his right hand up to block most of Bedak’s hooks and always seemed a step and a thought ahead of his opponent. I remained sceptical about Vazquez even after his destruction of the overmatched Sonsona, but he’s made me a believer.

Vitali Klitschko, however, looked pedestrian and plain boring in his 10th round win over an outclassed Albert Sosnowski. I kept thinking: “What’s taking him so long?”

Sosnowski was awkward and showed more movement than I had expected. I guessed wrongly that the Polish heavyweight would take the fight to Klitschko and force the WBC champ to open up, thus opening the door to the possibility of a mid-round stoppage. By boxing a conservative type of fight, Sosnowski was able to go rounds, but of course he had no chance of winning.

Has Klitschko deteriorated as a fighter? I have to wonder. He didn’t seem able to pull the trigger on his right hand until late in the fight, or maybe he was just being ultra-careful. It puzzled me, though, why he was exhibiting so much caution. It was a slow, dull, wearing-down type of win, with Klitschko pawing and prodding with the left, sometimes throwing a cuffing hook or bringing up a pushing type of left uppercut with hands by his sides.

By the ninth I think that Sosnowski was as much mentally exhausted as anything, and Klitschko finally dropped in the right hand to wobble the challenger. The right hand that ended the fight in the 10th was impressive, but for the first time I find myself giving David Haye an excellent chance of upsetting the older Klitschko if the fight can be made.