Now you can relive Vic Darchinyan's dominant technical decision win over Yonnhy Perez with THESE exciting highlights from Showtime Sports, hosted by Al Bernstein!
One of the topics today is how good Yonnhy Perez is -- how much he has left and all that. Perez is 32 years old, which isn't particularly old, and though he's fought a lot of tough battles lately, he isn't particularly old in ring years either. But is he just blown out early?
I think if you look at his last five fights, you can get a good read on where he's at. Start with his May 2009 trip to South Africa to face Silence Mabuza. Since that fight Mabuza has fought just once in a "get well" bout last October, but coming into the fight Silence was still a solid contender at 118, and his only career losses have come to Perez and twice to Rafael Marquez, who was an absolute beast at bantamweight. Perez was losing that fight, then rallied to come back and stop Mabuza in the 12th round.
After that, he got his shot at Joseph Agbeko and a title trinket, and he put on what now looks to be without a doubt, a career-best, absolute peak performance. Perez was incredibly busy, outworking Agbeko and just being a step ahead of him most of the fight.
Then came Abner Mares -- a good, very competitive fight, but there were signs then that Perez was not really the guy who fought Agbeko. The rematch with Agbeko was a role reversal of their first fight, with Agbeko a step ahead of Perez for the majority of the bout. Last night, Vic Darchinyan beat the crap out of Perez, who looked slow on the draw, was constantly beaten to the punch by Darchinyan, and looked to consistently feel Darchinyan's power.
Now this 0-2-1 stretch for Perez is not the worst thing in the world. This 0-2-1 is a lot better than a lot of 3-0 stretches he could have gone on, because all the fights came against top guys. But there is legitimate concern with his performances, and that concern is whether or not he's the fighter he appeared to be so briefly. I'd say he's not, but he's still a contender at 118, so long as he chooses to stay there. A jump up to 122 might not be the worst idea, either.