Unheralded Pinoy Fighters Post Rare Twin Title Wins in Thailand
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 08 Mar 2020
Boca (L) and Lerasan (C) register double win in Thailand.
How difficult is it to win in boxing in Thailand?
Last Tuesday, Nohirito Tanaka just joined a now growing list of Japanese, and for that matter other foreign, visiting title champions and challengers who came home empty handed after fighting in Siam.
The taller Tanaka got dropped and thoroughly outclassed in losing a one sided unanimous decision to Niyomtrong Thammanon, also known as Knockout CP Freshmart who successfully defended his WBA minimumweight title for the ninth time, twelfth if we include his interim title defenses, all in Thailand.
Thammanon is one of the only two Thai reigning world champion, the other being WBC minimumweight titlist Menayothin who has even longer title reign and whose record of 54-0 has surpassed Floyd Mayweather's previous 50-0 mark, fighting exclusively at home.
Thammanon was the same Thai defending world champion who frustrated the bid late last year of Pinoy ArAr Andales who was denied a TKO win when the supposed neutral American referee ruled that the cuts on the eyelid suffered by Thammanon was caused by accidental headbutt enabling the Thai to retain his title by technical decision. The Thai has also earlier beaten two Pinoy challengers Rey Loreto and Toto Landero.
That's how hard it is to get a win in the Land of Thousand Temples and Elephants.
But earlier that same week, two unheralded visiting Filipino fighters bucked the odds and defeated their fancied Thai opponents, both by upset technical knockout victories, winning WBA Asia championships ( WBA 's counterpart regional titles to WBC's Orient Pacific titles).
Jeny Boy Boca, now 14-6-0, 12 KOs defeated Warawut Thawornkarm, now 21-3-0 via fourth round technical knockout to wrest the WBA Asia flyweight championship in Bangkok, Thailand.
Warawut was coming off a win over Indonesian Samuel Tehuayo for the Asian title and a fighting TKO defeat to WBA flyweight champion Artem Dalakian in Kiev last year.
Boca on the other hand won just one of his four previous fights in three years, including a sixth round knockout loss to Kongrich Nantapech for the IBF Asia championship in 2016.
In the companion 12 round main event, Adrian Lerasan, now 9-4-0, 3 KOs, stopped ertswhile umdefeated Thai prospect Tanes Ongjunta, now 4-1-0, 2 KOs to win the vacant WBA Asia super flyweight title.
Ongjunta won all his four bouts, two by knockout since turning pro last year.
Lerasan meanwhile was just 2-4 in his last six bouts, including a victory over Jeny Boy Boca and losses to Dave Apolinario and Jerven Mama since 2018.
Given the comparative records of the four protagonists, the results could be considered as upsets that could prompt Thai boxing promoters to take a harder look at the credentials of Filipino and foreign fighters they will be importing for fights in the country, going forward to avoid future embarrassments.
The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.
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