GAB CONTINUES TO ALLOW MISMATCHES
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 17 Jun 2007
In another inexplicable mismatch which the Games and Amusements Board has apparently approved WBA No. 1 ranked Eriberto “Yukka” Gejon battles Japan’s Masatasugu Okada who has a miserable fight record of 8 wins as against 9 defeats and 3 draws with 3 wins by knockout.
In stark contrast Gejon who is managed by Rex “Wakee” Salud and lost a highly controversial ten round technical decision in a world minimum weight title fight against Japan’s Yutaka Niida on September 25, 2005 has only one defeat and one draw with 14 knockouts in 23 wins.
What is even worse is that the 24 year old Okada has lost seven of his last eight fights with one draw against Takeshi Honda on December 13, 2004.
In his last fight on February 22, 2007 Okada was knocked out in the sixth round of an eight round bout by Naoto Saito while prior to that he suffered a first round KO at the hands of former Filipino world title challenger Rodel Mayol on September 18, 2006.
The fight against Gejon is set for ten rounds but the only time Okada fought in a ten-round bout was on December 6, 2005 when he lost by a fourth round TKO to Thailand’s Devid Lookmahanak.
In the meantime the GAB has failed to explain how it approved the fight of another boxer from Salud’s stable, Gilbert De La Torre who lost by a second round KO to undefeated Japanese Shigetaka Ikehara last June 4. Ikehara had a record of 13-0-1 with 10 knockouts while according to boxrec.com De La Torre’s record was 7-5-1 with 1 KO.
While the Japan Boxing Commission has a rule that only the top twelve fighters rated by the GAB in a division would be allowed to fight in Japan, GAB Boxing Division chief Dr. Nasser Cruz maintained that De La Torre was ranked No. 6 . However, what the GAB failed to mention was the fact that De La Torre was rated in the straw weight division but fought Ikehara as a light flyweight which was in a higher weight division where he was not rated.
Earlier super flyweight Pinping Tepura who had lost in a brutal first round KO to Bert Batawang last January 21 was matched against undefeated Japanese Daiki Kameda and as expected lost by a third round KO.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.
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