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Skill, training and determination have allowed Israel Vazquez to become a world champion boxer.
The people who inspire those attributes can be found inside a small Huntington Park home, to which Vazquez returned last August after a grueling title fight in Hidalgo, Texas.
With his two young children inside, a battered Vazquez first found his wife, Laura. He hugged her, and whispered reassurance:
"We won."
Vazquez had recaptured his title in a compelling rematch with his former Mexico City neighbor, Rafael Marquez, a series that reaches its third act Saturday night at the Home Depot Center in Carson.
In both previous bouts, Vazquez found himself engaged in a brutal course of events that would've swallowed lesser men.
Last March in Carson, Marquez connected fiercely with Vazquez's nose in the first round, grotesquely rearranging the cartilage inside so severely that the World Boxing Council super-bantamweight champion was forced to battle through six more rounds without any air passing through his nose.
Imagine fighting under water without a snorkel, Vazquez has joked.
Breathless before the bell starting the eighth round, Vazquez told his trainer he'd have to fight another day.
Five months later, in Hidalgo, Vazquez re-emerged with a nose reconstructed by a Beverly Hills surgeon. He and Marquez battled through a third round that some boxing observers classified as the round of the year, with Vazquez taking Marquez's best punishing lefts and answering with hard counters.
By the sixth, blood was pouring from under Vazquez's right eye, but he relentlessly attacked Marquez, knocking him down first, and then finishing him with a barrage that left a still-standing Marquez dazed and unresponsive. Referee Guadalupe Garcia stopped the assault, awarding Vazquez the technical knockout and acclaim as winner of the fight of the year.
"I know by working hard I'll get the things I want to gain in my life for my wife and children," Vazquez, 30, said recently after concluding a training session in South El Monte. "That's what I strive for."
The people who inspire those attributes can be found inside a small Huntington Park home, to which Vazquez returned last August after a grueling title fight in Hidalgo, Texas.
With his two young children inside, a battered Vazquez first found his wife, Laura. He hugged her, and whispered reassurance:
"We won."
Vazquez had recaptured his title in a compelling rematch with his former Mexico City neighbor, Rafael Marquez, a series that reaches its third act Saturday night at the Home Depot Center in Carson.
In both previous bouts, Vazquez found himself engaged in a brutal course of events that would've swallowed lesser men.
Last March in Carson, Marquez connected fiercely with Vazquez's nose in the first round, grotesquely rearranging the cartilage inside so severely that the World Boxing Council super-bantamweight champion was forced to battle through six more rounds without any air passing through his nose.
Imagine fighting under water without a snorkel, Vazquez has joked.
Breathless before the bell starting the eighth round, Vazquez told his trainer he'd have to fight another day.
Five months later, in Hidalgo, Vazquez re-emerged with a nose reconstructed by a Beverly Hills surgeon. He and Marquez battled through a third round that some boxing observers classified as the round of the year, with Vazquez taking Marquez's best punishing lefts and answering with hard counters.
By the sixth, blood was pouring from under Vazquez's right eye, but he relentlessly attacked Marquez, knocking him down first, and then finishing him with a barrage that left a still-standing Marquez dazed and unresponsive. Referee Guadalupe Garcia stopped the assault, awarding Vazquez the technical knockout and acclaim as winner of the fight of the year.
"I know by working hard I'll get the things I want to gain in my life for my wife and children," Vazquez, 30, said recently after concluding a training session in South El Monte. "That's what I strive for."
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