Now that things have sort of settled down following last Saturday’s fight card at the air-conditioned and very nicely laid out Hoops Dome in Lapu Lapu City, it may be time to take a studied look at what went on.
When Tysopn Cave bragged that he would make AJ “Bazooka” Banal cry in the ring he almost succeeded because Banal was almost crying in anger at the stupid antics of the Canadian who acted like a clown in the ring and certainly not a supposed WBC Continental Americas super bantamweight champion.
To put it bluntly, it was a mockery of the sport and we could never figure out how such a joker could have been picked to fight a world rated fighter like Banal.
In fact Cave probably made the fans also cry over having paid good money to see a comedy feature not a competitive boxing match.
Banal whose stance with feet far apart doesn’t help any, tried vainly to chase and catch Cave but hardly succeeded, adding to his frustrations which were aggravated by the accidental head-butt that caused a nasty gash over his eye.
Unfortunately, the corner failed to stop the bleeding and apparently couldn’t adapt to Cave’s style which saw Banal chasing a shadow much of the time. The corner-men aggravated the situation by mocking Cave instead of developing a plan to counter the Canadian’s pitter-patter, one-two punch forays now and then.
What aggravated the farce was the utter incompetence of referee Tony Pesons who had absolutely no control over the fighters and allowed both of them to get away with numerous low blows while Cave continued to hold every time Banal tried to move in and work to the body.
All Pesons did was shout “ho, ho,ho” like some Santa Claus way before Christmas.
He clearly should have warned both fighters that he would deduct points or throw them out if they continued to do what they were doing. But Pesons did nothing.
This episode highlights the Games and Amusements Board’s failure to set standards and to recruit talented ring officials so the sport can grow in terms of quality of refereeing and judging. Some of the GAB judges look pathetic and are even worse when it comes to scoring a fight.
Its no use having the GAB Chairman Guanzon or Boxing Division chief Dr. Nasser Cruz at the fights if they don’t see the poor state of officiating and do something decisive about it. Going to out of town fights should not be regarded as a junket but rather an opportunity to make sure that the standards of refereeing and judging are of the highest order.
Getting back to the ALA fighters. It would be best if youthful Michael Aldeguer pushes through with his plan to set up a training camp in the US and to send some of his more talented fighters to train under Robert Garcia, trainer of Nonito “The Filipino Flash” Donaire,in an Francisco.
With all due respect to our trainers they can only take our fighters as far as regional titles but aiming for world championships is a vastly different story.
While Michael Domingo and the other fights on the undercard were good and the fights entertaining, the main event was a major disappointment and the numerous messages we received on the social networking sites, by email and text reflected the frustration of fight fans who followed the action on ABS-CBN’s pre-eminent Channel 2.
We are certain that ABS-CBN vice president for Sports, Peter Musngi, was also terribly upset over the main event. Peter didn’t find the antics of Cave amusing at all. In fact they were downright annoying.
We trust that Filipino fight fans have seen the last of fighters like the Cave-man who had the temerity to claim he was robbed. The only people who were robbed were Filipino fight fans and Cave was the thief.
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