THE BREAKDOWN How Donaire Beat Arce

Published

12 years ago

December 17, 2012

Lee Wylie

Donaire Arce 121215 008a The case can be made that Donaire is the best pound for pound fighter in the world. (Chris Farina-Top Rank)

On Saturday night, Nonito Donaire capped off a sensational year –one which will surely see him take fighter of the year honors- after knocking out Jorge Arce in the third round of their fight in Houston, Texas. Arce, who announced his retirement from boxing in the ring to Larry Merchant, was simply no match for Donaire, who was able to control and dominate the tough little Mexican from start to finish. Here, I’d like to illustrate how Donaire was able to end the fight so efficiently and abruptly.

Instead of coming out all guns blazing, Jorge Arce, who was as powerfully built as I’ve seen him look, defied reputation and came out far more passively than he usually does. It was actually a very smart strategy from Arce, given the way in which the heavy-handed Donaire has dispatched of overly aggressive opponents in the past. Arce knew that by staying on the outside before coming in behind single punches, then getting back out again, Donaire would be forced into taking the fight to Arce, thus, possibly eliminating his counter-punching threat. What continues to impresses me with Donaire, more so than any of his other vast physical gifts, is his mind…he’s constantly thinking. Where a lot of fighters may have resorted to applying relentless pressure in this situation, feeling somewhat frustrated by Arce’s negative tactics, Donaire sought out another way of opening his opponent up. Instead of trying to cut the ring off, eating up the distance using sustained pressure, Donaire applied subtle pressure using small shuffling steps, along with feints and single jabs, looking to draw a lead out from Arce. Donaire wanted the fight to come to him.

donaireArceBreakdown 1

Notice here how Donaire is approaching Arce in a subtle manner. Donaire is edging forward, taking small shuffling steps before taking a half step back. By doing this, Donaire is giving Arce a false sense of distance, hoping that he’s going to lead off so that he can counter. Even though Arce doesn’t react to it here, one can see Donaire’s intentions –edge forward, half-step back, draw out a response and counter.

In this sequence, Donaire’s subtle pressure pays off. Here, as Donaire is edging forward, Arce responds by leading with a right hand. As Donaire takes a half-step back and leans away, Arce falls short and is now off-balance. Donaire is now in a perfect position to counter and lands a short left uppercut to the chin of Arce.

This was also one of the many subtle baiting techniques that heavyweight knockout artist Joe Louis used.

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Here’s Joe Louis doing what he does best. After edging forward, Louis baits his opponent into leading by sticking a left arm out. As his opponent responds and leaps in with a left hook, Louis takes a half-step back and counters with a short left hook on the inside, sending his opponent down to the canvas. Louis, like Donaire, was brilliant at forcing his opponents into opening up and making mistakes by applying subtle pressure.

The more frequently Arce was tagged, the more he began to open up. Donaire’s subtle pressure, along with those single jabs and feints, really drew out the attack from Arce, who, at heart, is really a blood and guts fighter. As a result, even more counter-punching opportunities came along for Donaire.

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Here, Arce leads with a jab but is countered by a Donaire jab. Notice how Donaire blocks Arce’s jab using his rear glove as he’s landing his jab. Donaire has an astute understanding of timing and distance. He knows that his superior speed and length will allow him to reach and find the target before Arce can.

The first knockdown in the fight illustrated one of Donaire’s signature counter-punching techniques perfectly.

donaireArceBreakdown 5

Here’s Donaire parrying and countering over the top of a jab. As Arce leads with a jab, notice how Donaire turns his rear hand over so that his palm is pointing towards the punch. Donaire intercepts the jab and counters with a short right hand over the top. Although the knockdown was a little scrappy, there was still a lot of skill involved.

This counter-punching technique requires great hand speed as well as excellent hand eye coordination. It was also one of Roy Jones Jr’s favorite countering techniques.

donaireArceBreakdown 6

Here’s Roy Jones Jr. parrying a jab with his rear hand and countering over the top with a left hook/straight right combination. Notice how Jones’s left glove is carried low in the first picture –this draws the jab out. There are a lot of similarities between Jones and Donaire. Especially the way in which they counter after a parry.

After the knockdown, Jorge Arce began taking more chances on offense and started to take the fight to Donaire. It wasn’t too long before the inevitable happened.

Here is where the second knockdown took place. As Arce leads with a left hook, Donaire ducks and rolled under to the outside. As Donaire pressed his left elbow into Arce’s right shoulder, freezing Arce, he fired a right hand over the top and outside of Arce’s line of vision. Even though Donaire threw another two left hooks that sent Arce to the canvas, the right hand landed here was the real damaging blow.

The finale will likely be remembered for being another picturesque left hook knockout by Donaire. However, I thought his composure in taking out a hurt fighter was particularly noteworthy. In the same scenario, you’ll often see a fighter throwing wildly in trying to close the show. Not Nonito Donaire.

donaireArceBreakdown 8

With Arce hurt, Donaire moves in calmly. Instead of swinging for the fences, Donaire tries to bait Arce into opening up again. See how Donaire edges forward and tries to counter Arce’s jab with a right hand counter. Arce manages to avoid Donaires first attempt at closing the show.

Undeterred, Donaire moves in calmly again. This time, he launches a right cross followed by a left uppercut. Both shots partially land and Arce manages to survive yet another Donaire assault.

Donaire’s patience finally pays off.

donaireArceBreakdown 10

Here, Donaire manages to finally close the show via his spring-loaded left hook. Donaire’s left hook, either as a counter or a lead, may just be the best punch in all of boxing. It’s certainly the one shot that I’d select for encapsulating both boxing’s brutality and beauty in a single moment.

All in all, it was another spectacular performance by Nonito Donaire. Sure, nobody really gave Jorge Arce a real chance of winning the fight, but Donaire must be given credit for taking Arce away from his initial game plan, and out within a few frames. Last week, we saw a sensational counter-punching finish by Juan Manuel Marquez when he knocked out Manny Pacquiao with an over-hand right at the end of the sixth round. In the dying moments of that fight, we saw a fighter pay the ultimate price for being overly aggressive. Ultimately, Manny Pacquiao’s deliberate and predictable attack left nothing to the imagination and pretty much made Marquez’s mind up for him. Marquez also had close to 42 rounds of in-ring experience with his familiar opponent prior to that fight ending moment. Jorge Arce is certainly no Manny Pacquiao, but during the early going of this fight, Donaire found in front of him an unfamiliar and unwilling opponent. Regardless of ability, I’ve always felt these are the most difficult fighters to put away -the Joshua Clottey’s against Manny Pacquiao, and some of the early career opponents of Mike Tyson or a light heavyweight Roy Jones. As good as Manny Pacquiao is, his style accommodates that of a hard hitting counter-puncher.

Donaire, by way of his superior ring intelligence, assessed the situation and managed to figure out a way of opening up an opponent who wasn’t really looking to open up. As I’ve already mentioned, once Arce was floored, we saw him resort back to something more like his old self where Donaire would soon put the finishing touches on yet another masterpiece, but this clearly wasn’t the case at the beginning of the fight.

I really don’t want to delve too deep into all of the PED talk that seems to be dominating boxing right now, but Nonito Donaire MUST be applauded for his participation in the 24/7/365 VADA testing that he’s currently undergoing. There’s an obvious problem out there at the moment and Donaire is doing his best in trying to eradicate it.

Right, now let’s get back to Donaire’s boxing ability. Personally, I think Nonito Donaire is the most creative offensive fighter in the sport right now. He’s at the opposite end of the spectrum to the likes of Floyd Mayweather and Andre Ward who are always looking to stymie and stifle. Yes, Donaire’s different. He’s looking to unlock and unload. He’s always searching for the knockout. And what’s even more worrying for future opponents is the fact that he’s becoming a more intelligent fighter with each passing fight. During his last three outings, Donaire has shown that he now has the deciphering skills to figure out an opponent’s style and adapt to it accordingly -we saw him pressurizing and getting inside on a taller opponent in Jeffery Mathebula, and against Toshiaki Nishioka and now Jorge Arce, we’ve seen a more strategic, trap setting Donaire. A few fight ago, relying on nothing but his speed and power, Donaire seemed to be a little left hand happy. This is no longer the case.

Hopefully, promotional issues can be put aside for once and boxing fans will get to see Nonito Donaire versus Abner Mares in 2013. Should that fight be made and should Donaire win, which is not beyond the realms of possibility, then I think Nonito Donaire would have a very good case on his hands for being recognized as the very best fighter in the sport.

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Lee Wylie

Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

Published

5 hours ago

May 6, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Arne's-Almanac-The-Good-the-Bad-and-the-(mostly)-Ugly-A-Weeend-Boxing-Recap-and-More

Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

It’s old news now, but on back-to-back nights on the first weekend of May, there were three fights that finished in the top six snoozefests ever as measured by punch activity. That’s according to CompuBox which has been around for 40 years.

In Times Square, the boxing match between Devin Haney and Jose Carlos Ramirez had the fifth-fewest number of punches thrown, but the main event, Ryan Garcia vs. Rolly Romero, was even more of a snoozefest, landing in third place on this ignoble list.

Those standings would be revised the next night – knocked down a peg when Canelo Alvarez and William Scull combined to throw a historically low 445 punches in their match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 152 by the victorious Canelo who at least pressed the action, unlike Scull (pictured) whose effort reminded this reporter of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” – no, not the movie starring Paul Newman, just the title.

CompuBox numbers, it says here, are best understood as approximations, but no amount of rejiggering can alter the fact that these three fights were stinkers. Making matters worse, these were pay-per-views. If one had bundled the two events, rather than buying each separately, one would have been out $90 bucks.

****

Thankfully, the Sunday card on ESPN from Las Vegas was redemptive. It was just what the sport needed at this moment – entertaining fights to expunge some of the bad odor. In the main go, Naoya Inoue showed why he trails only Shohei Ohtani as the most revered athlete in Japan.

Throughout history, the baby-faced assassin has been a boxing promoter’s dream. It’s no coincidence that down through the ages the most common nickname for a fighter – and by an overwhelming margin — is “Kid.”

And that partly explains Naoya Inoue’s charisma. The guy is 32 years old, but here in America he could pass for 17.

Joey Archer

Joey Archer, who passed away last week at age 87 in Rensselaer, New York, was one of the last links to an era of boxing identified with the nationally televised Friday Night Fights at Madison Square Garden.

Joey Archer

Archer made his debut as an MSG headliner on Feb. 4, 1961, and had 12 more fights at the iconic mid-Manhattan sock palace over the next six years. The final two were world title fights with defending middleweight champion Emile Griffith.

Archer etched his name in the history books in November of 1965 in Pittsburgh where he won a comfortable 10-round decision over Sugar Ray Robinson, sending the greatest fighter of all time into retirement. (At age 45, Robinson was then far past his peak.)

Born and raised in the Bronx, Joey Archer was a cutie; a clever counter-puncher recognized for his defense and ultimately for his granite chin. His style was embedded in his DNA and reinforced by his mentors.

Early in his career, Archer was domiciled in Houston where he was handled by veteran trainer Bill Gore who was then working with world lightweight champion Joe Brown. Gore would ride into the Hall of Fame on the coattails of his most famous fighter, “Will-o’-the Wisp” Willie Pep. If Joey Archer had any thoughts of becoming a banger, Bill Gore would have disabused him of that notion.

In all honesty, Archer’s style would have been box office poison if he had been black. It helped immensely that he was a native New Yorker of Irish stock, albeit the Irish angle didn’t have as much pull as it had several decades earlier. But that observation may not be fair to Archer who was bypassed twice for world title fights after upsetting Hurricane Carter and Dick Tiger.

When he finally caught up with Emile Griffith, the former hat maker wasn’t quite the fighter he had been a few years earlier but Griffith, a two-time Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine and the BWAA and a future first ballot Hall of Famer, was still a hard nut to crack.

Archer went 30 rounds with Griffith, losing two relatively tight decisions and then, although not quite 30 years old, called it quits. He finished 45-4 with 8 KOs and was reportedly never knocked down, yet alone stopped, while answering the bell for 365 rounds. In retirement, he ran two popular taverns with his older brother Jimmy Archer, a former boxer who was Joey’s trainer and manager late in Joey’s career.

May he rest in peace.

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Bombs Away in Las Vegas where Inoue and Espinoza Scored Smashing Triumphs

Published

2 days ago

May 4, 2025

David A. Avila

Bombs-Away-in-Las-Vegas-where-Inoue-and-Espinoza-Scored-Smashing-Triumphs

Japan’s Naoya “Monster” Inoue banged it out with Mexico’s Ramon Cardenas, survived an early knockdown and pounded out a stoppage win to retain the undisputed super bantamweight world championship on Sunday.

Japan and Mexico delivered for boxing fans again after American stars failed in back-to-back days.

“By watching tonight’s fight, everyone is well aware that I like to brawl,” Inoue said.

Inoue (30-0, 27 KOs), and Cardenas (26-2, 14 KOs) and his wicked left hook, showed the world and 8,474 fans at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas that prizefighting is about punching, not running.

After massive exposure for three days of fights that began in New York City, then moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and then to Nevada, it was the casino capital of the world that delivered what most boxing fans appreciate- pure unadulterated action fights.

Monster Inoue immediately went to work as soon as the opening bell rang with a consistent attack on Cardenas, who very few people knew anything about.

One thing promised by Cardenas’ trainer Joel Diaz was that his fighter “can crack.”

Cardenas proved his trainer’s words truthful when he caught Inoue after a short violent exchange with a short left hook and down went the Japanese champion on his back. The crowd was shocked to its toes.

“I was very surprised,” said Inoue about getting dropped. ““In the first round, I felt I had good distance. It got loose in the second round. From then on, I made sure to not take that punch again.”

Inoue had no trouble getting up, but he did have trouble avoiding some of Cardenas massive blows delivered with evil intentions. Though Inoue did not go down again, a look of total astonishment blanketed his face.

A real fight was happening.

Cardenas, who resembles actor Andy Garcia, was never overly aggressive but kept that left hook of his cocked and ready to launch whenever he saw the moment. There were many moments against the hyper-aggressive Inoue.

Both fighters pack power and both looked to find the right moment. But after Inoue was knocked down by the left hook counter, he discovered a way to eliminate that weapon from Cardenas. Still, the Texas-based fighter had a strong right too.

In the sixth round Inoue opened up with one of his lightning combinations responsible for 10 consecutive knockout wins. Cardenas backed against the ropes and Inoue blasted away with blow after blow. Then suddenly, Cardenas turned Inoue around and had him on the ropes as the Mexican fighter unloaded nasty combinations to the body and head. Fans roared their approval.

“I dreamed about fighting in front of thousands of people in Las Vegas,” said Cardenas. “So, I came to give everything.”

Inoue looked a little surprised and had a slight Mona Lisa grin across his face. In the seventh round, the Japanese four-division world champion seemed ready to attack again full force and launched into the round guns blazing. Cardenas tried to catch Inoue again with counter left hooks but Inoue’s combos rained like deadly hail. Four consecutive rights by Inoue blasted Cardenas almost through the ropes. The referee Tom Taylor ruled it a knockdown. Cardenas beat the count and survived the round.

In the eighth round Inoue looked eager to attack and at the bell launched across the ring and unloaded more blows on Cardenas. A barrage of 14 unanswered blows forced the referee to stop the fight at 45 seconds of round eight for a technical knockout win.

“I knew he was tough,” said Inoue. “Boxing is not that easy.”

Espinoza Wins

WBO featherweight titlist Rafael Espinosa (27-0, 23 KOs) uppercut his way to a knockout win over Edward Vazquez (17-3, 4 KOs) in the seventh round.

“I wanted to fight a game fighter to show what I am capable,” said Espinoza.

Espinosa used the leverage of his six-foot, one-inch height to slice uppercuts under the guard of Vazquez. And when the tall Mexican from Guadalajara targeted the body, it was then that the Texas fighter began to wilt. But he never surrendered.

Though he connected against Espinoza in every round, he was not able to slow down the taller fighter and that allowed the Mexican fighter to unleash a 10-punch barrage including four consecutive uppercuts. The referee stopped the fight at 1:47 of the seventh round.

It was Espinoza’s third title defense.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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Undercard Results and Recaps from the Inoue-Cardenas Show in Las Vegas

Published

2 days ago

May 4, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Undercard-Results-and-Recaps-from-the-Inoue-Cardenas-Show-in-Las-Vegas

The curtain was drawn on a busy boxing weekend tonight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas where the featured attraction was Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue appearing in his twenty-fifth world title fight.

The top two fights (Inoue vs. Roman Cardenas for the unified 122-pound crown and Rafael Espinoza vs. Edward Vazquez for the WBO world featherweight diadem) aired on the main ESPN platform with the preliminaries streaming on ESPN+.

The finale of the preliminaries was a 10-rounder between welterweights Rohan Polanco and Fabian Maidana. A 2020/21 Olympian for the Dominican Republic, Polanco was a solid favorite and showed why by pitching a shutout, punctuating his triumph by knocking Maidana to his knees late in the final round with a hard punch to the pit of the stomach.

Polanco improved to 16-0 (10). Argentina’s Maidana, the younger brother of former world title-holder Marcos Maidana, fell to 24-4 while maintaining his distinction of never being stopped.

Emiliano Vargas, a rising force in the 140-pound division with the potential to become a crossover star, advanced to 14-0 (12 KOs) with a second-round stoppage Juan Leon. Vargas, who turned 21 last month, is the son of former U.S. Olympian Fernando Vargas who had big money fights with the likes of Felix Trinidad and Oscar De La Hoya. Emiliano knocked Leon down hard twice in round two – both the result of right-left combinations — before Robert Hoyle waived it off.

A 28-year-old Spaniard, Leon was 11-2-1 heading in.

In his U.S. debut, 29-year-old Japanese southpaw Mikito Nakano (13-0, 12 KOs) turned in an Inoue-like performance with a fourth-round stoppage of Puerto Rico’s Pedro Medina. Nakano, a featherweight, had Medina on the canvas five times before referee Harvey Dock waived it off at the 1:58 mark of round four. The shell-shocked Medina (16-2) came into the contest riding a 15-fight winning streak.

Lynwood, California junior middleweight Art Barrera Jr, a 19-year-old protégé of Robert Garcia, scored a sixth-round stoppage of Chicago’s Juan Carlos Guerra. There were no knockdowns, but the bout had turned sharply in Barrera’s favor when referee Thomas Taylor intervened. The official time was 1:15 of round six.

Barrera improved to 9-0 (7 KOs). The spunky but outclassed Guerra, who upset Nico Ali Walsh in his previous outing, declined to 6-2-1.

In the lid-lifter, a 10-round featherweight affair, Muskegon Michigan’s Ra’eese Aleem improved to 22-1 (12) with a unanimous decision over LA’s hard-trying Rudy Garcia (13-2-1). The judges had it 99-01, 98-92, and 97-93.

Aleem, 34, was making his second start since June of 2023 when he lost a split decision in Australia to Sam Goodman with a date with Naoya Inoue hanging in the balance.

Check back shortly for David Avila’s recaps of the two world title fights.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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