A Night of Knockouts in Bacarra
By Salvador Lopez
PhilBoxing.com
Sat, 20 May 2006
All five professional bouts in the “Bakbakan sa Bacarra” boxing card ended in TKOs that the event could had been dubbed as “A Night of Knockouts in Bacarra”.
The show held last Thursday night in the northern town of Bacarra, Ilocos Norte was another promotion of the seemingly tireless Gabriel “Bebot” Elorde Jr. in coordination with Bacarra Mayor Philip Velasco. Promoter-businessman Frankie Balasi, a former boxer who hails from this town, also contributed a lot to the success of this event.
The explosive card opened fire right in the very first round of the first scheduled professional bout when Jobert Zamora and Robert Bumenaag engaged in heated exchanges until Bumenaag dropped Zamora with combinations to the head initiated by a strong right straight. Visibly wobbled and on the verge of being counted out, Zamora bravely stood up and managed to finish the round after being staggered several times more by Bumenaag.
In the second round, Zamora began working on the body of Bumenaag who obviously was feeling the effects of Zamora’s punches. A wicked hook by Zamora to the right side of Bumenaag’s body dropped the latter writhing in pain and looked like he would no longer be attempting to get up. So thought Zamora that he wasted precious seconds watching Bumenaag down before being directed to the neutral corner by Referee Silvestre Abainza. Bumenaag surprisingly beat the count at nine to resume fighting, thanks to Zamora’s earlier mistake that delayed the start the count. Fortunately the mistake proved uncostly for Zamora as he was able to deck Bumenaag once again with his vicious body punches. This time, Bumenaag was counted out. With the knockout victory, Zamora was treated to a “star adoration” by the appreciative crowd.
The bout was later adjudged as the best fight of the evening.
In the second bout, Marlo Villamor boxed beautifully to defeat Sonny Ranedo. Villamor was blocking and evading most of Ranedo’s punches while sneaking shots of his own. In the second round Villamor began unleashing some powerful shots to the head and body of Ranedo and continuing to the third round. Referee Virgilio Garcia stopped the fight when it was obvious that Ranedo was no longer fit to provide too much of a resistance.
The third bout produced the most devastating knockout of the evening when, after a few skirmishes in the opening round, Edwin Tumbaga landed a thunderous right uppercut to the chin of Ronilo Sermona, immediately dropping the latter to the canvas. Officially, Sermona was counted out at 28 seconds in the first round.
In the supporting main event, Javier Malolan used his superior reach advantage in keeping “Master Showman” Sukarno Banjao at bay en-route to a fourth round stoppage. It looked like Banjao suffered a broken nose and declared unfit to continue.
The main event between Isidro “Baby” Lorona Jr. and Joebar Damosmog was a battle of a “slow starter” (Lorona) and a “fast starter” (Damosmog). The fight was for the LUZPROBA Lightweight Championship.
True to his reputation, Damosmog immediately jumped on Lorona in the first round while Lorona contented on defending himself sticking mostly to the ropes. Although Lorona blocked most of the punches, Damosmog was able to sneak in some telling shots easily winning him the round.
In the second round, Damosmog was still pressing the action while Lorona continued his lack of aggression. Midway in the round, Damosmog caught Lorona with a big left uppercut to the chin staggering the latter. From then on, Damosmog was hitting Lorona more and more as he was being able to get close to the latter. Lorona was hesitant in throwing his jabs and appeared confused at this point.
The third round started with a big Lorona jab straight to the chin of Damosmog that was certainly felt by the latter. Lorona was soon following the “fight plan” using his jabs effectively to keep Damosmog at bay while throwing hard and accurate shots to the body of Damosmog. Damosmog clearly felt the power of Lorona’s punches as he had slowed down from there and it was obvious at this point that the momentum had changed.
The fourth round proceeded as in the previous round with Lorona pounding Damosmog’s body more and more. Unable to get close to Lorona and becoming desperate, Damosmog resorted to antics, keeping his hands down while sticking out his chin to Lorona or spreading his arms in a crucifying position in the hope of trapping Lorona to get careless so that he would land the “lucky punch”.
The fifth round was all Lorona and looked like Damosmog was finished at this point. It was also in this round where Lorona delivered his most beautiful shots, a combination of hooks and uppercuts to the body of Damosmog that further weaken the latter. At the end of the round, Referee Abainza went to the corner of Damosmog to check if the the latter was still fit to continue and the he responded that he could still go on.
Continuing his assault in the sixth round, Lorona once again delivered some heavy blows to the body of Damosmog that finally dropped the latter to the canvas in his own corner. While lying on the canvas, Damosmog raised his left foot as a gesture of surrender.
The professional card was preceded by two exciting exhibition bouts, one featuring a battle amateurs and future stars in Roland Angel, Jr. and Remuel Obidos and another one between two attractive ladies in Judeath Nagaowa of Benguet and Jonna Chokowen of Mountain Province.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Salvador Lopez.
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