TAPALES WINS BUT CONCEPCION LOSES SPLIT DECISION
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Sat, 07 May 2011
Promising super flyweight Marlon Tapales won a six round majority decision over a game Alejandro Solorio but fancied former world title challenger Bernabe Concepcion dropped a split decision to Juan Carlos Martinez at the Mandalay Bay Resort Hotel and Casino, Saturday.
With the win the 18 year old Tapales, a prot?g? of Manny Pacquiao?s friend and confidant Rex ?Wakee? Salud improved to 17-1 with 5 knockouts while Solorio fell to 4-5 with 3 knockouts.
Tapales took command in the opening round but Solorio came back to score effectively in rounds two and three.
The fight was an exciting round as both Tapales and Solorio suffered knockdowns in a wild exchange and although Solorio kept pressing the action in round six he visibly tired enabling the young Filipino to turn the tide for the win.
Two of the three judges had Tapales the winner, one by a shutout 60-54 while the other had the Filipino comfortably ahead 59-55 while the third judge scored it a draw at 57-57.
In the co-main event Bernabe Concepcion who was ranked No. 8 featherweight by the prestigious Ring Magazine put on a disappointing performance against journeyman Juan Carlos Martinez losing an eight round split decision although the judges scorecards hardly reflected the superiority of Martinez who improved his record to 19-12-1 with 7 knockouts while Concepcion dropped to 28-5-1 with 15 knockouts.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer monitored a ?live? coverage of the ESPN Friday Night Fights where an increasingly exasperated Freddie Roach kept egging Concepcion to ?throw combinations. Let your hands go? telling the slow-footed featherweight after three rounds they were losing all three.
At the end of fine rounds Roach told Concepcion ?you need to knock this guy out? and although he landed a good left and cracked Martinez with a wicked just before the bell ended round six, the constant head movement of Martinez who kept busy with a right to the head and a left to the body earlier, gave him the edge.
Two good shots by Concepcion in round seven bloodied the nose of Martinez giving Roach some hope as he exhorted his fighter ?come on Bernabe, stay on him.? But the highly touted Filipino resorted to one or two punches at a time with the right hand and hardly looked like having a chance to win.
Ring announcer Lupe Contreras announced that two judges gave the fight to Martinez by margins of 77-75 which appeared to be somewhat generous to Concepcion while the third judge was even more generous giving the fight to Concepcion 77-75.
Although Concepcion connected with the harder punches including what referee Tony Weeks signaled as a low blow in round two where he gave the far busier Martinez some time to recover.
(PHOTO ABOVE - CONCEPCION VS MARTINEZ, BELOW - Tapales vs Richard Olisa in Glan, Sarangani)
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.
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