Israel Vazquez To Lose His Right Eye After Years of Issues
By Miguel Rivera
Former world champion Israel Vazquez (44-5, 32KOs) is going to lose his right eye in the coming months - a likely consequence of his brutal four fight series with Rafael Marquez.
The tissue around Vazquez's eyes were very prone to cuts. He took a lot of damage during the fights with Marquez. The first three were stage back to back within a twelve month period, from March 2007 to March 2008. By the time he entered the ring for the fourth fight in 2010, he had nothing left and was knocked out in three rounds. It was the final fight of his pro career.
During his career and beyond, Vazquez had numerous surgeries to deal with the severe injuries around his eyes.
"The problem obviously arose after the last fight (with Márquez), but I don't want to demonize the sport or the fight, because this was an oversight by my physician and myself. When they began to do the surgeries related to my retina.... I had many surgeries and they tried many methods and one of them was to put silicone in the eye. I assumed that the doctors knew what they were doing, and at that time I did not recover my vision 100% but I could live my life," Vazquez told ESPN Deportes.
"In 2011, I went to Mexico and at a clinic known I was told that it was practically a miracle that I had not lost my eye because the eye cannot withstand so many surgeries and I had already had six. They told me then that I needed a cornea transplant."
With the help of the World Boxing Council, Israel was evaluated by specialists in Mexico City and it was revealed to him that the silicone that had been used on his eye had hardened, creating the vision issues. And they gave him two options. The first was wait for the eye to dry out - a process that could take several years. And the other option was to remove the eye and put in a prosthesis. Vazquez decided on the second option.
"What's happened is that I can't see with the right eye. I am sensitive to light, I cane make out silhouettes, but it hardly serves any use in the night. I have made my life with the left eye and I have no problems. So I opted for the prosthesis, and [WBC President] Mauricio Sulaiman has been helping me. Without being sarcastic, I prefer to look good with something that doesn't work than have something that does not work and does not make me see well. There is no set date [for the procedure] but we will see when can do it. I know that psychologically it won't be easy but it is something that I will need to get used to."
"I would ask everyone who has had a tremendous amount of wars - that they do not risk too much and always be cautious."
Tags: Israel Vazquez
in light of the above..most definitely got to put israel vazquez vs rafael marquez in here...honestly its a complete oversight that wasn't mentioned earlier...even before reading this terrible news i was already
at the amount of damage they inflicted on each other...i made a thread on this some months - http://www.thecoli.com/threads/a-ri...arquez-vs-israel-vazquez-the-4-fights.393799/ - a perfect example of a series of fights ruining both fighters involved
it's interesting I love the sport of boxing.
