Eumir pitches a shutout
By Joaquin Henson
PhilBoxing.com
Mon, 10 Oct 2022
LOS ANGELES. There was a slight hitch in Tokyo Olympic middleweight boxing bronze medalist Eumir Marcial’s dominant showing against hometowner Steven Pichardo at the Dignity Health Sports Park here Saturday night (yesterday morning, Manila time). Although he pitched a shutout with three judges turning in 60-54 scorecards, Marcial suffered a nasty cut that took five stitches to close.
An accidental headbutt opened the wound in the second round and blood smeared Marcial’s face up to the final bell. Twice, referee Gerard White summoned ringside physician Dr. Robert Ruelaz to examine Marcial’s cut but allowed the fight to continue. Under boxing rules, a fight is ruled a no-contest if it is stopped because of an accidental headbutt within four rounds. If it is stopped after four rounds, the fighter leading on points is declared the winner by technical decision. If the cut opened by the accidental headbutt is aggravated by punches and becomes the cause of a later stoppage, the wounded fighter loses by TKO. After the fight, Dr. Ruelaz sewed up Marcial’s cut with Dr. Sharday Grant assisting in the lockerroom.
Marcial said he took a hard shot to the side of the body once but otherwise wasn’t hurt. He raised his arm to wipe the blood off his face and exposed an angle which Pichardo found to land the blow. Marcial said with blood spewing out of the gash, he could hardly see from the right eye but didn’t admit it to White. Pichardo proved durable and withstood Marcial’s power from the onset. Pichardo’s head swiveled like a pinball as Marcial used it for target practice.
“I went through a whole bottle of adrenaline and five wads of gauze to control the cut but it was too deep and a small vein kept spurting out blood,” said Marcial’s coach and cutman Jorge Capetillo whom he calls Papa. “That bottle cost me $500 so it’s not cheap. But we put it to good use. Eumir has improved a lot and he’ll keep on improving. He showed a lot of maturity, patience and composure. This was just the beginning for Eumir.” The win raised Marcial’s pro record to 3-0, with one KO while Pichardo’s mark fell to 8-3-1, with two KOs.
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