For a time, he was Mandaue’s favorite son after he captured the WBC flyweight belt with a stunning seventh-round KO win in May 2000 over Medgoen Singsurat, who previously himself had a stunning third-round KO win over the Philippines’ favorite son, Manny Pacquiao (Pacman had actually lost the WBC 112-pound division title at the scales for being unable to make the weight limit).
Malcolm was easy on the eyes of boxing aficionados. He had good feet, quick hands, knockout power and had a flair for entertainment.
I almost forgot all of these until I saw Malcolm dominate erstwhile OPBF bantamweight champion Kumarnthong Por Pluemkamol of Thailand last Saturday on a TV replay of their Nov. 19 Tokyo fight.
After the first four rounds, I came to wondering how this muscle-bound rather short Thai, who moved as if he had concrete for shoes and iron balls for testicles, could be the defending champion after a 7-7-1 record. There is evidently still a lot of luck involved in pro boxing.
To drive home the point, Kumarnthong had won no round of 12 rounds of a Malcolm Tu?acao show and showboating.
When Malcolm was introduced before the fight, he timed his swagger and strut to the ring announcer’s pronouncement. After the bell rang for the last round, he jumped on the low rope, waved his right mitt at the appreciative crowd and wiggled his glutus maximus.
He did more dance moves after he was declared the winner by unanimous decision
When Malcolm fought his 11th fight and stripped the WBC belt from Medgoen, Malcolm was a relative unknown in international boxing. The main reason Megoen agreed to take him on was because of Malcolm’s meager ring record.
When the Thais realized that Malcolm was left handed, they started to have doubts as to retaining the belt and after the third round, they started to get scared. After Malcolm knocked out Medgoen in the seventh round, the Thais started to sing Saan Kami Nagkamali in Thai.
Malcolm was young and very good and it seemed he would hold on to his belt for a good while if he did not let his youth and excellence get in the way. But in his first title defense, he barely retained his title after he drew with Celes Kobayashi, after points were deducted from Malcolm’s scores in the sixth and ninth rounds for headbutting. In his next fight, Pongsaklet Wonjongkam knocked down Malcolm three times in the first round en route to a TKO victory.
But Malcolm has risen after that crushing loss. After a technical draw with Randy Mangubat in his next fight, Malcolm has won all eight of his subsequent matches.
He now has a new manager, Yasuo Matsuoka, who seems to be doing right steering the Mandaue native back to the top of the world ratings and hopefully to the top of the world again.
DAY OF RECKONING. Today false prophets will be exposed. Those who had said Manny Pacquiao would beat Erik Morales and even give him his first career knockout loss will or will not be proven right. While the more reserved who are convinced the results would still be the same, seeing a Morales repeat over Pacquiao will be saying, I told you so.
Those who believe Pacquiao will get beat again; there is still the danger of being accused of being un-Filipino if you make your opinion known.
Call me un-Filipino, although I’d rather be called cynical and pragmatic, but my crystal ball fell off its stand, rolled, hit and stopped on the wall, and the image it showed was Morales outlasting and outpointing Pacquiao once more.
Pacquiao’s best chance at winning is to knock out Morales in seven rounds or less. After that, unable to put Morales down on his back, the go-for-the-KO-all-the-time Pacquiao’s frustration will grow and it will be easier for the technically-better Morales to pick apart Pacquiao.
When interviewed by a Filipino crew after their Vegas presscon, Morales said he rates Pacquiao the boxer a five in a scale of one to 10. Morales is wrong. Pacquiao is a six. He could even go as high as seven.
But wherever both fighters place in the scale, that won’t matter when they get in the ring and start banging on each other. On paper is different from in the ring.
