In pursuit of the Vazquez Effect

Much of last week was spent wondering how Rafael Marquez -- half of the greatest boxing trilogy in decades -- could make his first fight in 14 months, in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, off American television, and for the most part unnoticed. Saturday's sentiment went like this: Curiosity to frustration to resignation to epiphany.

Surely boxing could not be on Mexican network television without being somewhere on the Internet. Somewhere indeed. A Google search uncovered a BoxRec.com message board. Buried in a thread was the link to a live feed of Mexico's TV Azteca. Or one of Azteca's cousins, anyway: TV Azteca 7. Since this was the equivalent of streaming ABC's Lakers-Nuggets game, commercials and all, no little-voice-inside-me alarms got tripped.

Just before 9 p.m. PT, Marquez made his flyweight debut against Colombian Jose Francisco Mendoza in Arena Monterrey. Marquez won by knockout at 2:26 of the third round. It was a night one broadcaster in Azteca's four-man booth called "muy mexicana." It was a fight another commentator said had told us "absolutamente nada" about Marquez, post-Israel Vazquez. Both guys were spot on.

Keeping in the "muy mexicana" spirit of things, I finagled a living-room arrangement to make my Mexican friends proud. No, it wasn't a rabbit-eared television drawing power from a truck battery, as I've seen done in both Jalisco and Tamaulipas, but it sufficed: Wireless router to laptop to VGA cable to 46-inch television. Bien hecho.

So how did Marquez look? Hard to say -- and not because of the VGA connection. Frankly, he looked a little soft. He was only four pounds heavier than his last fight, the rubber match with Vazquez, but those four pounds were not muscle. Marquez remains an impressive physical specimen, but at 126 pounds, his shoulders-to-waist taper isn't dramatic as it was in March 2008.

Or perhaps I was straining to see evidence of the Vazquez Effect. Whatever the outcome of the fights, Israel Vazquez changes opponents. He ruins their bodies some. He makes their psyches fragile and cautious. He beats them up.

Part of what made Vazquez's trilogy with Marquez so memorable was that, in Marquez, Vazquez had an opponent capable of ruining him right back. And regardless of how Marquez looked Saturday, don't forget: Marquez, unlike Vazquez, had medical permission to fight. Fourteen months and some surgeries later, Vazquez still awaits clearance.

Enough disclaimers? OK. Marquez looked more than rusty. He looked tentative. He did not land a consequential right hand in the first six minutes. His stance appeared too narrow. It might have been Azteca's camera work, but several times Marquez almost committed the cardinal sin of crossing his feet. And when the right hands did come, they told us absolutamente nada.

Let the record reflect: Colombian fighters' knockout victories in Colombia mean as much as Mexican fighters' knockout losses in Mexico. Or, absolutamente nada. You don't have to look far for case studies on this one.

When he fights outside of Colombia, Jose Francisco Mendoza is now 0-3 (2 KOs). But when he fights inside Colombia, Mendoza is a terror. He starches 17 of every 21 men he faces. He is a warning from Colombian mothers to their children: "Shape up, or Mendoza's coming for you!"

Rafael Marquez, meanwhile, began his career with an eighth-round knockout loss to Victor Rabanales, a former WBC bantamweight champion in his 56th career prizefight. In his first professional venture, then, Marquez became Rabanales' 22nd knockout.

Remember that whenever some coddled American boxer hectors you about his unblemished résumé.

Anyway, the important point is that Marquez did eventually un-holster his right hand Saturday. Though he didn't appear to throw it with the same bring-it-back-low conviction he showed against Vazquez, it was enough. He dropped Mendoza a couple of times. Then things got strange.

As referee Carlos Garcia either counted Mendoza out or helped him to his feet and beseeched him to continue, Marquez's manager Jaime Quintana climbed through the ropes and strode a third of the way across the blue mat. Then Quintana climbed halfway out of the ring. Then Quintana climbed back in the ring to celebrate. While that act wouldn't have played in Vegas, it passed on a night that was, again, "muy mexicana."

Other such very-Mexican things included: American ring announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr. impressively doing the whole fight card -- introductions, scorecards, all of it -- in Spanish; a post-fight TV Azteca interview with Marquez, where the initial technical difficulties were resolved by turning the microphone on; and finally Julio Cesar Chavez.

Chavez is a hero to the Mexican people for good reason. And that reason is not his commentating. Working ringside, he appears, ah, disengaged. But this dissuades none of his broadcast partners. Before each fight, they turn to Don Julio for a prediction. And with an entire country holding its breath, Chavez never fails to pick the Mexican by knockout.

That was his prediction for Saturday's main event, which did not include Rafael Marquez but rather Jhonny Gonzalez -- another Israel Vazquez victim -- in a match with Japanese WBC super bantamweight champ Toshiaki Nishioka. If Marquez is a pending study in the Vazquez Effect, Gonzalez is not. That study is conclusive.

Since his ruinous battle with Vazquez in 2006, Gonzalez is 1-2 in title fights. He was knocked cold by a third-round left cross Saturday. He too could have made his night easier by throwing right hands in the first round, after he dropped the southpaw Nishioka. But Gonzalez kept his right hand holstered like Marquez, as if they both remembered Israel Vazquez's left hook -- and wanted to keep their guards high and tight.

Chasing evidence of the Vazquez Effect over the broadband feed of a Mexican television network was a great way to spend Saturday night. The results aren't in quite yet. Barring a fourth Vazquez-Marquez fight, we'll have to wait 'til Marquez faces Juan Manuel Lopez back at 122 pounds to know what's what.

Bart Barry can be reached at bbarry@15rounds.com

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