LOS ANGELES – A place called the Star Plaza outside Staples Center on a Friday afternoon was a curious spot to stage a weigh-in between two of the era’s least-frilly, least-flashy and least-assuming prizefighters, but there it was. Under a hot sun and before a black backdrop, the “Once and Four All” fighters took the scale and completed a collective journey from underappreciated craftsmen to stars.
Mexicans Israel Vazquez and Rafael Marquez each made the featherweight limit for their Saturday fight, the fourth in their rivalry, with a half pound to spare. Vazquez took the scale first, looking fitter than he’d appeared in his previous fight, and marked it at 125.5 pounds. Marquez followed immediately behind and made an identical 125.5.
Then the men turned and faced one another. Their expressions were serious and no words were exchanged. But that was expected. No trash-talking, no faux rage, no unseemly shtick. On the eve of what could well turn out to be the finest boxing tetralogy in 50 years, the combatants stuck to a formula they’d employed in their previous three encounters.
Honorable to a fault, Vazquez and Marquez might have arrived at Staples Center earlier if they’d joined hands and lunged at the promotion of another tired blood feud, like so many lesser combatants have in recent years, but that has not been their way. And because they did things the right way, a crowd gathered to celebrate them.
Round the press area in Star Plaza, a common sentiment was expressed by scribes. Vazquez-Marquez IV might be good as its predecessors, or it might not, but either way, attendance was mandatory to honor the sacrifices the men had made and would make at least once more.
Those sacrifices have been, and will remain, brutal. The terrible prospect of facing the same man a fourth time is one few prizefighters have confronted. The last American to do it, San Antonio’s Jesse James Leija, addressed the hardest part of the feat, earlier this week.
“You know him so well,” Leija said of his four-fight series with Ghanaian Azumah Nelson. “You know he’s not going to give up. Knowing they’re not going to give up, I’d say, is the hardest part.”
Adjustments can be tried in training camp, and the rumor of a new strategy can be dangled before fans and media, but according to Leija, none of it matters much.
“Not really,” Leija said about the likelihood of either fighter making significant stylistic changes. “Nothing is going to happen that’s going to change who you are once the fight starts.”
That hasn’t stopped Rafael Marquez from making one rather large change going into this fight with Vazquez. Saturday night, Marquez will fight without legendary trainer and instructor Nacho Beristain in his corner, for perhaps the first time since Marquez began wearing gloves. In a quiet homage to Beristain – the man who taught him to box – though, Marquez has selected Mexican Daniel Zaragoza to be his chief second.
But Zaragoza, a hall of famer who was also trained by Beristain, does not expect to provide Marquez with much that Beristain did not.
“Nothing more than attention,” Zaragoza said Friday, when asked what more he could offer. “Solely attention.”
Zaragoza was also quick to assert that no strain exists between Marquez and Beristain.
“All is well between them,” Zaragoza said. “And, of course, all is well between (Beristain) and me.”
But when asked if there was anything he might have changed in the 12th round of Vazquez-Marquez III, had he been in Marquez’s corner, Zaragoza was emphatic.
“Right hands, right hands,” Zaragoza said, and he punched his left palm. “More right hands!”
Certainly, that was the strategy that worked for Vazquez, was it not?
Saturday’s card will be broadcast by Showtime at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT. Its co-main event will feature an intriguing fight for the IBF bantamweight title between Colombian Yonnhy Perez – who weighed 117.5 pounds Friday – and California’s Abner Mares, who made 116.8.
Staples Center doors open at 2:55 p.m. local time, with the first fight, of seven, expected to commence at 3:00.
GOLDEN BOY FANS SEE ONLY BRONZE
Any local fight enthusiasts who attended Friday’s weigh-in hoping to catch a glimpse of Golden Boy Promotions’ Oscar De La Hoya had to content themselves with a statue in Star Plaza. De La Hoya, whose company is a co-promoter of “Once and Four All” and who has not been seen at events recently, was not present at Staples Center though his bronze likeness was.
