PONTILLAS BACK IN CONTENTION FOR OPBF TITLE REMATCH
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Wed, 14 Mar 2012
Former Oriental and Pacific Boxing Federation super featherweight champion Ronald Pontillas is back in contention for a title rematch against South Korea?s Dong Hyuk Kim who won the title in a highly controversial fashion in South Korea on January 15, 2012.
Pontillas won a unanimous eight round decision over Hirohito Fukuhara in Kobe earned a rematch against Kim although indications are the South Korean is injured a Pontillas may have fight for the interim title while waiting for the champion.
Kim won on a technical decision after the Korean was unable to continue due to a cut suffered because of an accidental head-butt.
Respected boxing TV analyst Moy Lainez told the Manila Standard that a close review of the tape showed that while Korean referee Soon Chul Hwang claimed the cut was due to an accidental clash of heads the cut was ?the result of a legitimate punch ? a right hook to the left eyebrow and immediately after the punch there was blood.?
Lainez noted that a decision was reached only after a lengthy deliberation by Korean Boxing Commission officials.
He said the cut continued to bleed and ?although they kept looking at the cut the fight was not stopped because I think at that time Pontillas was still leading on the scorecard of the neutral Japanese judge? Katsuhiko Nakamura.
Lainez said ?when they saw that they were leading already, they stopped the fight and announced it was an accidental head-butt. They discussed this for more than 15 minutes and nobody knew who won the fight. Then all of a sudden the face of the Korean appeared on TV and he was declared winner by split decision.?
Nakamura had Dong ahead 77-76 at the time of the stoppage, Korean judge Joon Serk Kwon also had his countryman ahead by a wide 78-74 margin while experienced Filipino judge Virgilio Garcia had Pontillas winning 78-74.
Pontillas, a hard-hitting southpaw won the title with a 1st round TKO of Masao Nakamura on May 7, 2011and successfully defended it with a twelve round unanimous decision over countryman Jun Talape last September 16, 2011.
With the loss the 22 year old Pontillas dropped to 13-4-3 with 6 knockouts while the 24 year old Dong, also a southpaw and the Korean champion, improved to 6-1 with 1 knockout.
The manager of Pontillas, Rommel Nazario wrote a letter to the OPBF pointing out what they learned from a review and the OPBF acted by promising Pontillas a rematch and facilitated this by ranking him No.1.
In the Fukuhara bout all three judges had Pontillas the winner by margins of 79-74,77-76 and 79-74 .
Fukuhara was coming off an impressive 1st round TKO of undefeated Hizokami Okajima (7-0-2, 4 KO?s) last November 3, 2011.
The win over Fukuhara improved the 22 year old Fontillas? record to 14-4-3 with 6 knockouts.
Pontillas said Fukuhara was a hard puncher although he suffered a cut on the left eye which is the same cut that was opened in the Kim fight.
At the same time he said the Japanese was himself badly battered, cut and bleeding.
Pontillas (R) downs Nakamura.
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