De La Vega: Magsayo's Coming Out Party Was Almost a Dud
By Ed de la Vega, DDS
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 04 Oct 2020
It has been many moons ago when Mark Magsayo has been in the ring. Could that perhaps be the reason why his showing tonight was less than what his new promoters had hoped for?
Or was it ring rust for being away from the ring for so long? But then again, those should not be excuses because Magsayo has been in big US boxing shows before during his stint as a fighter from the now defunct but famed ALA Boxing Gym of Cebu
Although the matchmakers will never admit it, it's easy to conclude that Rigoberto Hermosillo of Mexico was picked as the next best guy when Magasayo’s original opponent Jose Haro backed out just three weeks ago before their scheduled fight, because Hermosillo and Haro are good but they will have a tough time beating Magsayo emphatically.
In fact the reverse was expected.
But for some reason, Magsayo fought different from what was expected of him. He seemed to have a hard time measuring Hermosillo and although he landed a few great shots, the Mexican substitute stood his ground and even many times showed that he too can dish out what Magsayo could. CompuStats shows that.
And the fight went on. Saved for the great counters Magsayo landed early on that momentarily rocked Hermosillo, nothing spectacular was seen from the undefeated would be world title challenger. In fact, in few occasions he seemed to employ the old habits he learned from the ALA Gym, the old 1-2 or 2-3 combination and back off.
Did coach Freddie Roach and Justin Fortune squeezed Magsayo enough to make him better, stronger and faster? I am no boxing expert and I maybe wrong, but I felt they didn’t do enough.
Magsayo was not ready for a 10 round slam-bang affair as he seemed to have lost steam in the latter part of the fight. Was it perhaps because of lack of great conditioning or perhaps they looked past the lowly substitute only to find that he was no easy stepping-stone to the title.
Magsayo for some reason could not really find a way to dispose off Hermosillo who CompuStats shows out thrown and outlanded Magsayo.
It is for this reason why the fight was a split decision. One judge, Dr. Lou Moret scored the fight for Hermosillo (96-94) because of that. Judge Zach Young was about right (96-94 in favor of Magsayo), but Judge Rudy Barragan (100-90) giving all the rounds to Magsayo was way off base. He was perhaps watching another fight.
At any rate, Magsayo, just like a pundit said, is not yet ripe for a world title fight. At this point and time he needs many more rounds before “winning against the likes of Josh Warrington, Leo Santa Cruz and Gary Russell.”
All in all, a win is a win and Magsayo stayed undefeated. But his coming out party under his new management, sad to say, was almost a dud. But as they always said: “He will be back!”
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ed de la Vega, DDS.
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