WHAT Diosdado Gabi needs to do to make his boxing career going — no, recapture precious ground — is to restructure his fighting style.
The only thing he proved last Saturday was, he doesn’t have world-class moves to beat world-class fighters.
He is one-dimensional. He doesn’t have winged feet. He owns a pair of dull fists.
Not to brag but I started telling balikbayan Tito Kawile — right after I saw what was happening in the first round of the Gabi-Darchinyan fight last Saturday — that Gabi would be knocked out. Tito was seated beside me next to his pretty wife, Bella, as we watched the fight on TV.
When the knockout came in the eighth, I even thanked God. I also thanked referee David Mendoza for waving Gabi out. Gabi was glassy-eyed after getting tagged with a huge blow to the jaw. It was to his benefit that the referee had to end it 2:42 into the round.
Did Gabi’s defeat dent Freddie Roach’s sterling record as the trainer of world champions?
No.
Roach, who also trains Manny Pacquiao, is not to blame for the loss. There are simply fighters who cannot be easily molded to become world champions. I guess that, in the case of Gabi, Roach would need more than his world-renowned skills to transform him into a world champ.
I guess the correct approach for Roach is to spend nights figuring out how Gabi could be returned home to relearn the basics of not only fighting but also human relations.
Didn’t Gabi desert North Cotabato Governor Manny Pi?ol, his discoverer, in a most unkind manner?
They have a word for Gabi’s loss: karma.
