Ringside Boxing Report: Shane Mosley – Fernando Vargas

The speed of Shane Mosley was simply too much for Fernando Vargas on Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mosley was just waiting for an opening in the sixth round before planting a lightning left hook square on the chin of “El Feroz” , who fell backwards on the canvas, and stumbled twice before barely beating the ten count of referee Kenny Bayless. With Vargas on shaky legs, Mosley followed up with a barrage of punches, giving Bayless no choice but to stop the bout, granting Mosley his second TKO victory over Vargas at 2:38 of round 6.

Vargas appeared a bit slower than his first encounter with Mosley back in February, and Mosley’s speed and movement never really allowed Vargas into the fight as all 3 judges had Mosley winning every round at the time of the stoppage. Vargas may have left too much of
himself in his well-documented battle with the scales to meet the junior middleweight limit of 154 pounds, yet Vargas made no excuses and wouldn’t take anything away from Mosley’s performance. Mosley’s vaunted right hand was his key punch in the first fight and it appears Vargas had prepared for that and was able to avoid that punch in this fight. Mosley then decided to change tactics.

“I remember watching Oscar (De La Hoya) throw that perfect left hook against Vargas. When I was dancing around, I saw the opportunity and threw that perfect left hook again”.

Golden Boy Promotions, Main Events and HBO PPV put together an excellent undercard, much to the satisfaction of over 9700 people in attendance and HBO pay-per-viewers around the world.

WBO Super Bantamweight Champion Daniel Ponce De Leon, looked spectacular with a devastating first round knock out over Thailand’s Sod Looknongyangtoy. This fight was a rematch of a closely contested battle in October of last year that De Leon had won by 12
round decision. The Mexican 122 pound champion was determined to win this time in more stunning fashion during his first opportunity under a nationally televised main event. The fight was especiallly fun for this writer to watch from ringside for the full 52 seconds that it lasted.
De Leon came out swinging with vicious intent to the body and head of the game Thailander who was punching right back until the southpaw landed a perfect left cross on the chin of Looknongyangtoy, who had just missed with a shot of his own. The Thailander fell face-forward and lay spread out on the canvas, before regaining conciousness almost a minute later. The power punching De Leon improves his record to 29-1 with an eye-opening 27 knockouts, and certainly put other 122 pound champions and the rest of the boxing world on notice as someone to watch. Looknongyangtoy suffered just his second loss (both to De Leon)against 27 victories and his flight back to Thailand may feel a bit longer after the crushing defeat.

Another boxer who undoubtedly put his fellow professional pugilists on notice was WBA Lightweight champion Juan Diaz. The Houston, Texas native improved his undefeated record to 30-0 (15KO’s) with a 9th round TKO and one-sided shellacking of Fillipino Randy Suico.
Diaz was relentless with a two-fisted attack from the opening bell. The University of Houston student set a blazing pace and once again showed tremendous versatility in his attack with an effective jab to thwart many of Suico’s advances, brutal body punching, along with straight right and left hook combinations. Suico, a replacement for Diaz’s original opponent,
Lakva Sim, was fighting for the first time in the 135lb lightweight division, as his 26 previous fights were in the 130 pound jr. lightweight division. When he wasn’t moving backwards, or having his head snapped back, Suico’s punches seemed to lack the pop to prevent Diaz from consistently moving forward. Sucio was gamely absorbing enough punishment for referee Joe Cortez to visit his corner at end of round 4 to let them know things had to change or the fight
may eventually be stopped. A doctor visited the corner to look over Suico between the remaining rounds of the fight. Diaz finally slowed his brutal punching pace in round 7 to give Suico a glimmer of hope as the Fillipino picked up his attack and took the round on the judges
scorecards. Diaz went right back to work on the tiring Suico in the eighth round and with one more head snapping combination, gave Cortez reason to stop the fight at 2:06 of round 9. Suico will now head back to the Phillipnes with a record of 24-3(21 KO’s)

The likeable Diaz, just 22 years of age, showed that he is ready for the best in today’s lightweight division and mentioned after that fight that he would be honored to take on any of the other 135 lb champions such as Acelino Freitas, or a guaranteed fan-friendly war against Diego Corrales.