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SUICO RETAINS OPBF TITLE WITH KO WIN By Ronnie Nathanielsz PhilBoxing.com Sun, 26 Aug 2007  OPBF lightweight champion Randy Suico retained his title with an eighth round knockout over mandatory challenger Koji Samejima of Japan at the sprawling Mall of Asia open car park Saturday. Suico’s win highlighted the Philippines - Japan “Battle for Supremacy” fight card promoted by Rex “Wakee” Salud in cooperation with MP Promotions of Filipino ring idol Manny Pacquiao and covered for television by Solar Sports. Suico who decked Samejima with a left hook in the sixth round nailed the challenger in the eighth round with a cracking left hook followed by a vicious right straight to send the Japanese flat on his back. Referee Bruce McTavish didn’t bother to count as it was clear the Japanese was out cold. The official time was 2:23 in round eight. Suico who still appeared to be a little slow while plodding forward caught Samejima with some solid shots although he missed several uppercuts. The challenger whose face was reddened, appeared to be scared of the hard-hitting Filipino but at times fought back fiercely to the surprise of the champion as well as the fans who included former Sen. Ramon Revilla, WBC founding secretary general Rudy Salud, Aljoe Jaro, manager of IBF minimum weight champion Florante Condes and the "In This Corner" trio of Rod Nazario. Moy Lainez and Gerry Garcia. Also among the spectators was newly crowned WBO bantamweight champion Gerry Penalosa and his wife Goody, NABF super bantamweight champion Bernabe Concepcion as well as GAB chairman Eric Buhain and Commissioner Angel Bautista. Suico who won the vacant title in a bout against Thailand’s Pongpetch Chuwatana last October 14 lost by a fourth round TKO to Juan Diaz in a WBA title fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on July 15, 2006. With the win Suico improved to 27-3 with 23 KO’s while Samejima dropped to 15-2-3 with 6 KO’s. It was the Japanese fighters first defeat after three straight KO victories including a second round knockout over Dexter Delada in Osaka, Japan last October 8. WBO super featherweight champion Jimrex Jaca retained his title in a controversial technical draw at 2:17 of the second round over Japan’s Ryu Miyagi when the ring physician ruled that Jaca couldn’t continue because of two nasty cuts. Referee Bruce McTavish ruled that the cuts were caused by head-butts but many of the fight fans including WBC founding secretary general Rudy Salud said the second cut was clearly caused by a punch which appeared to be confirmed by slo-mo television replays. It was a disappointing end to an action-packed bout as Miyagi dropped Jaca with a perfect right straight in the opening round and had him groggy once again with a flurry of punches forcing McTavish who also refereed this fight to give Jaca a standing eight count. But the Filipino southpaw connected with a perfect left that decked the Japanese as the fans who braved the rains to watch the fights cheered the Filipino. Jaca is now 28-3-2 with 13 KO’s while the 33 year old Miyagi is 16-0-1 with 12 KO’s. Flyweight Wyndel Janiola was lucky to win a ten round split decision over stylish Japanese Hiroyuki Hisataka who out-boxed Janiola much of the way. Janiola was deducted a point by referee Ver Abainza in the eighth round for an accidental head-butt but while this helped judge Salvador Lopez score the fight 97-93 in favor of the Japanese it didn’t seem to affect the scorecards of Romy Yulo and Chris Odullo who both scored it 96-94 for Janiola. The Filipino improved to 19-4-1 with 9 KO’s while Hisataka dropped to 15-6-1 with 5 KO’s. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.  |
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