Beaten to a pulp

This just came unbidden while watching the cruel boxing lesson that Mexican WBA lightweight champion Juan "Baby Bull" Diaz taught to challenger Randy "Kumong Bato" Suico.

The ring monicker "Baby Bull" of Diaz ought to be "The Bull" or "El Toro" as there's nothing "babyish" in his fists. "Kumong Bato" must be scrapped and, if his handlers insist on a ring handle, "Kumong Mamon" it is.

Suico as 8-1 underdog was expected to lose but would last the distance. With his awesome 24-2 win-loss stats with 21 KOs, against 29-0 (14 KO) of Diaz, oddmakers never forecast a rout for Diaz, much less a KO or TKO. Many even had high hopes of pugnacious Randy pulling a knockout, what with his height, heft, and reach advantage.

But, right in the initial round, it didn't take a Ring Lardner to foresee the grim result of a one-sided brutality. That early, Suico's face was puffy as he sagged on his stool after the bell, all pathetic and beaten.

The crowding style of Diaz suited to a tee Suico's one-dimensional forward-moving style, that is, just plain toe-to-toe donny-brook of fistic mayhem... Unlike in his Sept. 23 split-decision loss to Carlos Jauregui in Los Angeles when wily Jauregui fought hit-and-run, Diaz just waded into Suico with no feints at all, and easy picking for Suico's "kumong bato".

But the next rounds saw the same staccato mauling of Suico's breadbasket and face without let-up and rocking Suico's face silly. The jabs were powerful straights, and the tummy hits made their toll. So mercilessly was Suico out-fought and out-hit that only 15% of his punches hit Diaz - mostly in powder puffs - against 65% peppering punches of Diaz.

It was perplexing that Suico's corner failed to make adjustments as the lop-sided fight progressed. Suico doesn't have Muhammad Ali's "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" offense-defense dexterity, but by gam, his no-defense and puny offense could have been adjusted somehow.

His one-track style stayed predictable, without lateral moves, zero agility or catlike footwork, but just a lumbering lummox approach. No bobbing or waving of head and body attuning with the footwork and fistic control. In Suico's case, his height edge became a liability as his toothpick stance had his face stand out as steady target and his breadbasket open to upper cuts and hooks.

Suico's prominent head "blocked" the straights and lightning jabs; his flouted straights and upper cuts often hit the air, or caught by Diaz' gloves. Oh yes, he used some short two-fisted weak thrusts, obviously made out of habit, and were of "massaging" effect. His handlers overlooked that he only had a respite from Diaz whenever Suico attacked in sporadic spurts. If only to get relieved from Diaz' fists, Suico ought to have been that aggressive.

Among pro-fights of international caliber, nowhere in time has one ever seen a one-sided beating that fits the phrase "beaten to a pulp" until the ring tragedy of fellow Mandauehanon Randy Suico. Not just a simple loss, but a traumatic and dehumanizing brutality that divested the hapless victim of his human ethos and dignity. What a relief when referee Joe Cortez stopped the beating in the 9th round!

The no-contest cruelty should have been stopped much earlier. But, more than anything else, the loved ones of Randy - his family, wife and kids especially, if any - should have been spared from witnessing and suffering the pain, the indignity, and the psychological shock over Randy's unexpected beating.

As in the anti-cruelty aegis for the dogs, there ought to be the SPCA-like protection against extreme cruelty to gladiators in the square jungle!

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