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Thursday, February 05, 2004
Oyson: Korean boxer in wrong place, time
By Manuel N. Oyson Jr.
Counter punch
That was a humdinger of a boxing card last Friday at the Waterfront Hotel-Lahug. Two Oriental boxing championships in one promotion. Two Filipinos winning as Oriental champions in one night in the same ring. The main event featuring a reigning Filipino OPBF champion and a South Korean pretender was the centerpiece of the evening.
When the South Korean was knocked out cold on his back and laid still for a full three minutes in the main, there was anxiety in the 2,000-seat ballroom.
RAW. I said to myself: Here we go again. Let us definitely abolish boxing altogether. The sell-out crowd was stunned at the sudden ending. Seungkwon Baek, the 19-year-old visiting ringster, was motionless on his back after receiving a jarring left cross from reigning OPBF super-featherweight champion Randy “Kumo’ng Bato” Suico in 45 seconds of the second round.
The crowd fell silent by the sudden ending. It fell into a hush. True, before the scheduled 12-round bout for the OPBF crown, the Korean was a 10-2 underdog. But he was at least expected to put up a show.
It was not to be. Only in the initial round did Seungkwon try to slug it out toe-to-toe with the 5-foot-11 Suico. The fateful round was the fastest second round I have ever seen in all my years of watching boxing. After the fight, TV sportscasters Quinito Henson and Allan Desierto and producer Bong Peyrera replayed that particular sequence on the TV monitor five times. This is what we saw: From a crouch, Suico took two steps back, then lunged forward.
He started with a jab to the right ribs, followed by a right to the body. Seung tried to parry the blows.
Suico sneaked in another right to the body. The visitor warded off another thrust to the midsection. Suico then whammed an upper left cross. Like a thunderbolt, it caught Seung flush on the chin. He fell backwards and time stood still for him. He laid motionless on the apron. People crowded on top of the ring. Respiratory measures were immediately taken to revive him.
The rest of the audience was gripped with anxiety. Would he be able to recover?
Stand up he did after three minutes, although wobbly. He was given a rousing ovation. He was only 9-3 in a young career, too raw and green to be challenging for even an OPBF title.
PATSY? Wasn’t he just another patsy, compared to Suico’s 21 straight victories, 18 by way of KO? It was not Suico’s fault that he demolished the crown pretender with methodical precision Baek was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The GAB hierarchy came in full force. Chairman Eduardo Villanueva was accompanied by Commissioners Angel Bautista and Emmanuel Palabrica (not Rau). Had something unfortunate happened to the Korean, they would immediately have ordered an investigation of the incident. As the GAB did in the deaths of Freddie Gimay in Zamboanga del Norte and John Eman Juarez last year in Danao City.
On this point, I extend my apologies to the GAB when, in jest, I said in my column of Jan. 31 about the investigation into these deaths: “I can only predict that no one will be blamed. Maybe, the stricken boxers themselves will be blamed.” I talked to Palabrica briefly last Friday and he said that the trainer of Gimay has been suspended for one year for misleading the GAB. The trainer assured Gimay before that he would be trained for three months before his fatal encounter with Robert Gadian. It turned out that Gimay was trained only for three weeks.
E-MAIL. Richelle Umbalin asks in an e-mail when there will be a TV coverage of basketball games in Manila of the Cebu Basketball Federation. She says her bother-in-law is a player on the Jaz Cola Kings and his parents would be delighted to see him play. They don’t have that much money to fly to Cebu every time he has a game. Watching her brother-in-law play on TV would do much for the whole family.
Richelle wishes that the CBF can do something about it. It would also be a great opportunity for the players as well as the league itself if they can have more and greater exposure in Manila. I am addressing this concern to the CBF’s public relations point man, Cerwin T. Eviota. I am sure that it is not only Richelle who has a relative suiting up for a CBF team. There may be others who are on different line-ups but who cannot watch them play because of distance, time and money. Are you there, Cerwin?
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “My message to Commissioner David Stern is get some people in here that understand the game.” – Los Angeles Lakers center Shaquille O’Neal after being fined $300,000 (P18.5 million) and suspended for his outburst after a one-point victory over the Toronto Raptors, 84-83.
(mno@sunstar.com.ph)
(February 5, 2004 issue)
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