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This past Saturday wasn't the busiest of the year but there was still plenty of action.
Nebraska, USA In the US we had a high profile IBF Featherweight title fight which saw the “Mexican-Russian” Evgeny Gradovich (19-0-1, 9) retain his title with a highly questionable draw against Jayson Velez (22-0-1, 16). It appeared that Gradovich swept much of the bout after a good start by his Puerto Rican opponent though the judges managed to find a lot of rounds to give to Velez and as a result we got a split draw that few could actually understand. Metro Manila, Philippines On a small Johnny Elorde Promotions card fans saw a number of promising fighters in action and actually saw one genuine shock. The main event wasn't the originally scheduled main event as Juan Martin Elorde saw his WBO Asia Pacific Super Featherweight title fight being called off on the day of the fight. Instead the other Elorde, Juan Miguel Elorde (17-1, 9) main evented with his bout being pushed up the card. Sadly for fans wanting to see “The Boss” in an actual fight this was an awful main event as Elorde easily saw off Indonesian visitor Oke Haryanto (5-5-1, 2) inside a round. One of the most promising Filipino fighters was in the chief support bout and actually scored a very impressive victory. That was Giemel Magramo (12-0, 9) who continued his unbeaten record as he scored an early win over Ruther del Castillo (9-21-8, 2). For the first time in his 38 fight Castillo was stopped, retiring from the bout. Whilst it was a good day for Magramo it wasn't good for all the unbeaten fighters on the card with Jeffrey Francisco (10-1-1) suffering his first loss with Jestoni Autida (6-2, 2) scoring a shock majority decision. Another unbeaten fight to suffer his first loss was Ryan Bajala (3-1-1, 1) whose loss was expected as he came up short against the light puncher Jay Loto (9-0). Yet another unbeaten man in action was Joe Noynay (7-0, 1) who took a decision over Pablito Canada (4-5-1, 1). Lower down the card Raymond Yanong (3-1, 3) over-came the limited Avelino Ramos (3-5) with Ramos retiring from the bout. Queensland, Australia In Australia we sadly saw an Asian trio come up short. One of those was Thailand's limited Paitoon Jaikom (1-11) who was dropped by Darren Askew (13-6-1, 4) en route to a clear loss. The bout, scored 40-35 across the board, really was one sided and again showed up how poor some of the Thai's fighting in Australia are. A second Thai on this show, Pramool Boonpok (1-9-1) gave a much better account of himself as he ran Liam Hutchinson (9-1, 4) close in a bout for the Queensland state Middleweight title. Again the Thai came up short but was competitive for the most part. The third Asian was John Bajawa (12-8, 6), of Indonesia, who was near enough shut out by local fighter Brad Hore (4-1). This was awful from Bajawa though it was surprising to see him go the distance given the fact he had been stopped 4 times prior to this bout, including a 1 round blow out to Ryo Matsumoto.
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 There aren't many days where action is non-stop but this Saturday was one of those days with more notable fights than we see in most weeks.
Macau The highlight of the boxing weekend for us was in Macau with an excellent Top Rank card dubbed "Featherweight Fury". The card, which featured 3 world title fights, began with a serious of low level bouts which included the second successive stoppage victory for Macau's very own Kuok Kun Ng (4-0, 2) who stopped Muhammad Imam (9-5, 3) inside a round. Ng's victory was in one of two 6 round bouts with the other one seeing a victory for Olympic silver medal winner Esquiva Falcao (3-0, 1). Falcao, who lost in the Olympic final to Ryota Murata, defeated Korean Super Middleweight champion Eun-Chang Lee (7-4, 3) via a 6 round decision. Falcao at times looked very good though we can't see him ever developing into a super prospect like Murata, which is actually unfortunate considering that's a bout we'd love to see in the professional ranks. The first major bout on the Macau card saw Yasutaka Ishimoto (24-7, 7) suffering the first stoppage defeat of his career as he was stopped by the hard hitting Chris Avalos (24-2, 18). This bout, an IBF Super Bantamweight eliminator saw Ishimoto give his all but unfortunately not have the toughness to stand up against the heavy hands of Avalos who appears to have set up an excellent bout with Kiko Martinez. Ng wasn't the only Chinese fighter on the card as Ik Yang (15-0-0-1, 10) quickly wiped out Indonesian Geisler AP (5-2, 3), needing less than a round to claim the victory. Although Ng and Yang both took easy and quick victories things were much harder for Hong Kong's "Wonder Boy" Rex Tso (13-0, 8) who was twice dropped by Ratchasak Kokietgym (22-3-1, 10). Although he was dropped twice Tso fought back excellently and took a clear decision in a bout that really tested Tso's character. Sadly the scare for Tso here likely stops him from getting his mooted bout with Kohei Kono, after all Tso is not ready for a guy like Kono. Following the undercard contests we then moved into the world title bouts, the first of which saw Evgeny Gradovich (19-0, 9) defend his IBF Featherweight title against the game but out matched Alexander Miskirtchian (24-3-1, 9). Gradovich was dropped once in the middle of the fight but dominated much of the contest and was the clear winner as he retained his title. The second Featherweight title fight saw Nicholas "The Axeman" Walters (24-0, 20) retain his WBA Featherweight title in eye catching fashion against the shop worn Vic "The Raging Bull" Darchinyan (39-7-1, 28). The bout was quiet though always looked like it wasn't gong the distance and in round 5 it ended suddenly when Darchinyan was knocked out by the powerful Jamaican. The great finish in the Walters/Darchinyan fight was a stark contract to the anti-climatic ending of the shows final world title bout which saw Nonito Donaire (33-2, 21) take a technical decision over Simpiwe Vetyeka (26-3, 16). Donaire, who was cut in the opening round, was in charge of the bout but the ending left a nasty taste in everyone's mouth, including Donaire's. The Filipino showed his classy side by offering a rematch though we doubt we'll see it with Donaire certainly having bigger fish to fry at 126lbs. London, UK As well as the trio of world title fights in Macau we also saw a title bout in London as Thailand's Tabtimdaeng Na Rachawat (52-3, 34) put up a great effort against England's very only Jamie McDonnell (24-2-1, 11) in a WBA Bantamweight title fight. Unfortunately for Tabtimdaeng his great effort was for naught as he was knocked out with a single shot in round 10. Although he lost Tabtimdaeng did impress and helped show that Thai boxers can be very exciting fighters with their pressure heavy styles. Distrito Federal, Mexico It was a bad day for Thai boxers in all honesty and in Mexico we sadly saw Srisaket Sor Rungvisai (27-4-1, 25) lose his WBC Super Flyweight title as he dropped a technical decision to Carlos Cuadras (30-0, 24). Srisaket's slow feet saw him chasing shadows against the fast moving Cuadras who, sadly, refused to stand and trade with the Thai as we had been hoping. It was a good win, on reflection, for Cuadras but the bout did feel like a let down in all honesty. On the same show in Mexico we also saw Japanese based Filipino Honey Mae Bermoy (6-4, 6) suffer a defeat as she was stopped by the world class Irma Garcia (10-1-1, 2) in just 4 rounds. This was the second successive stoppage loss for Bermoy who was stopped earlier this year by Tenkai Tsunami in an OPBF title fight. Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany Whilst things weren't good for Thai's on the world scene they were no better for Korean's and fans in Germany saw Susi Kentikian (33-2-0-1, 17) dominate South Korea's tough but limited Dan-Bi Kim (9-3-1, 2). Kim took a real beating and was saved by her corner sadly learning the hard way what it's like to compete with real world class opponents. Aichi, Japan Whilst much of the action was fought at a high level on the international stage there was also a card in Japan which saw several notable fighters in action. The main event on the Japanese card featured recent world title challenger Daiki Kaneko (20-3-3, 13) who returned to the ring with a bit of a gimme against Shogo Ishikawa (10-7, 3). Kaneko, who was last seen in the ring on New Year's Eve losing to Takashi Uchiyama, was too good, too big and too strong with Ishikawa. Kaneko's victory followed another by a former world title challenger as Ryo Akaho (23-1-2, 16) defeated Thailand's Songseanglek Phosuwangym (1-11) in just 82 seconds. This was Akaho's 4th straight stoppage since his sole loss to Yota Sato in a WBC Super Flyweight title fight back in 2012. It wasn't all good news for "name" fighters on this show as former Japanese Middleweight champion Tomohiro Ebisu (12-4, 12) was stopped by French man Kevin Thomas Cojean (14-5-1, 5). Ebisu was dropped in roudn 2 and failed to beat the 10 count in another fight that sadly showed that he can't take a shot. Earlier on the same card there was a good win for Hayato Yamaguchi (12-4-1, 2) who surprisingly stopped Tatsuya Kaneko (7-10-1, 1) in 5 rounds. On the under-card fans also got to see two rookie bouts as the unbeaten Takashi Igarashi (3-0, 1) defeated Tameji Ito (1-1, 1) in a 4 round majority decision and Yu Kinjo (4-3, 3) took a unanimous decision over Naoya Nishimura (3-6-1, 2). Guangzhou, China One, overly-late result, that we now have was that the unbeaten Chinese Heavyweight Zhang Junlong (7-0, 7) continued his winning run with a 5th round stoppage over Indonesia's Nico Toriri (27-17-3, 12). This result saw Junlong claiming the International Boxing Organization Asia Pacific Heavyweight title. Going into the weekend we had expected Junlong to be fighting Japan's Kotatsu Takehara though we're unsure why Junlong ended up fighting the much worse Indonesian fighter. (Image, courtesy of Pepe Rodriguez, is from the Srisaket/Cuadras result) |
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