by James Slater: Last night, in Mexico, Jorge Arce won his official WBC super-flyweight elimination bout with a good, hard earned majority decision over the previously unbeaten Thai fighter Devid Lookmahanak. The scores were 115-113, 114-113 and 114-114. The action was competitive, as these scores indicate, and Arce also scored a flash knockdown in the 7th round. Despite this, the largely unknown Thai forced things to the final bell. Arce, who was slightly busier in the fight, improved to 49-4-1(37). Southpaw Lookmahanak fell to 18-1(9)..
With his win, the former three-time world champion earned a rematch with fellow Mexican Cristian Mijares, whom last night added the WBA belt to his WBC championship at super-fly with a points win over Alexander Munoz. 28-year-old Arce lost on points to Mijares back in April of last year – the loss being his first for a long eight years. Now, after having taken care of Lookmahanak, the ultra-exciting Arce will get his chance to extract revenge.
Arce, nicknamed “Travieso,” has already had some career. Turning pro way back in January of 1996, the Mexican tough guy went on to capture world titles at light-flyweight (making eight successful defences), flyweight and super-flyweight. The loss to Mijares last year marked only the fourth defeat in a career that has seen Arce battle excellent fighters such as Michael Carbajal, Melchor Cob Castro, Hussein Hussein, Rosendo Alvarez and Mijares among others.
Always pleasing to watch fight, the 28-year-old is a fearless warrior who simply loves fighting. Arce has fought up as high as bantamweight recently, yet still seems, judging by last night, comfortable at 115 pounds. The rematch with 26-year-old Mijares should be some match. With a record of 35-3-2(14) the holder of the WBA and WBC world titles has never been stopped (Arce has been stopped just twice, once very early in his career, and once by Carbajal in 1999) and is also extremely tough.
When the two men fought last year, Mijares won comfortably via a wide unanimous decision. Not only that, but the 26-year-old has not lost a fight since back in 2002. It will take some effort for Jorge Arce to get revenge over Mijares in their rematch, whenever it happens. But, as we know, Arce is a fighter capable of making such an effort.
Roll on Mijares-Arce II!