ROCKY FUENTES LOSES IN IBF WORLD TITLE BID
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Wed, 22 Jan 2014
Rocky ?The Road Warrior? Fuentes has lost his bid to win the IBF world flyweight title, dropping a unanimous twelve round decision to former Thai Olympian i Amnat Ruenroeng in Nakhon Ratchasima on Wednesday afternoon.
WBO vice president for the Asia Pacific region Leon Panoncillo told the Manila Standard from Bangkok that the fight was ?more of holding and pushing and was a lackluster affair.?
He said Ruenroeng ?used his boxing skills and footwork to confuse Rocky who did not get off to a good start and could not land a clean shot although he was the aggressor.?
Panoncillo reported that the Thai ?was more accurate with his punches and even though they were not hard punches, they connected.?
The well-known WBO official who is a frequent visitor to the Philippines said Fuentes was ?plainly outboxed by the Thai who used his footwork effectively.?
All three IBF judges scored the fight for Ruenroeng by fairly wide margins. Two judges scored it for the Thai of 116-112 while the third judge had it for Ruenroeng by an even wider margin of 117-111.
It was a disappointing loss for the world rated Oriental Pacific Boxing Federation flyweight champion who had trained hard for the fight.
Highly rated by all the major boxing bodies in the world Fuentes it was a the big break for Fuentes who had longed for a title shot after his scheduled title eliminator against Puerto Rico's Olympic boxer McWilliams Arroyo was cancelled and champion Moruti Mthalane of South Africa decided to relinquish his title rather than fight in Thailand for a small purse.
With the win the undefeated 34 year old Ruenroeng improved his record to 12-0 with 5 knockouts while the 27 year old Fuentes suffered his first loss since 2007 with his record dropping to 35-7-2 with 20 knockouts.
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