First thing I did after watching Pedro Taduran lose his world title to Rene Cuarto in General Santos City last Saturday was ring up a dear friend to see what’s on the horizon for both fighters.
“We’ll have options for them,” said American boxing man Sean Gibbons as he dashed hopes that fight fans won’t likely end up facing off in an immediate rematch.
You see, Taduran was the defending champion while Cuarto was the challenger in the 12-round contest for the International Boxing Federation (IBF) minimumweight crown.
As challenger, one would expect Cuarto to press the action and be a bit more aggressive to show the judges that he is after Taduran’s head.
Instead, Cuarto had a tricky gameplan that messed up Taduran’s offensive strategy as he resorted to hit-and-run tactic most of the way en route to a unanimous (but close) decision win over the favored Taduran.
All three judges saw it 115-113 for Cuarto.
Obviously, the judges didn’t put too much premium on Taduran’s in-your-face attacking style and leaned towards Cuarto’s smart moves.
I must admit that Cuarto made Taduran look bad in the fight as he landed sneaky counters and I was concerned halfway through that the title might change hands.
Sensing that Cuarto was piling up points, Taduran stepped up his game.
Finally in the seventh stanza, he rocked the challenger so bad that I almost spat out the coffee I was drinking while watching the live stream via Powcast Sports as Cuarto’s knees buckled after Taduran’s left uppercut.
Taduran insists the referee should have ruled it a knockdown as Cuarto’s gloves touched the floor.
If only it had been ruled a knockdown, it would have altered the result of the fight and Taduran would have kept the IBF 105-lb crown via a draw being the titleholder.
Anyway, because Cuarto was successful in connecting and making Taduran miss wildly, I thought that the fight was a draw.
I wasn’t moved by Cuarto’s tactics of tying up Taduran at close range and his repeated running as if his ultimate goal was to last all 12 rounds and not dominate his rival.
Taduran was also at fault because he could not solve Cuarto’s counter-punching.
But if there was one thing that kept me thinking that Taduran deserved it more, it was the fact that he landed the blows that hurt the most.
In that fight, Taduran showed everyone he could take Cuarto’s best shots and Cuarto could not say the same thing.
Still, I was hoping Gibbons was going to move heaven and earth to make sure the two would end up squaring off again soon given the controversial outcome.
But, I myself, answered the question on whether a rematch should be mandated right away.
“Was it really a robbery?” Sean asked me.
“No, I don’t believe it was, Sean,” I barked at him. “It was close. It could have gone either way.”
End of the story.
