CEBU CITY, Philippines – There was a lot of disagreement here regarding the verdict of the IBF International featherweight championship which was bittersweet revenge for Rey “Boom Boom” Bautista. The bout was stopped in the seventh round on account of a deep, two-inch gash high up on the left side of the new champion’s head, obviously caused by a headbutt.
The crowd loudly booed both the premature stoppage and the intervention of referee Danrex Tapdasan’s, but it’s the ringside physician, not the referee, who calls off fights. The discerning Cebuano fight fans figuratively smelled blood in the water, as they could see Bautista’s new skill and power starting to take its toll on his former tormentor Heriberto Ruiz. But the climax was cut short by the continual attempts of “Cuate” to use whatever tricks he had to distract the Boholano fighter.
“We wanted Boom Boom to wear him out, that’s what we trained for,” revealed promoter Antonio Aldeguer. “And we could see it was starting to work, because Ruiz was slowing down.”
To be fair, Bautista started out poorly. The first round saw both fighters probing and moving around the ring, trying to gauge each other’s improvement since their initial clash two years ago. In the second round, Bautista hardly threw any punches, getting caught with the occasional flurry from Ruiz, whose father Ediberto was incessantly screaming instructions throughout the bout. The third round was more of the same, and the crowd started to cheer their hero on.
By the fourth round, Bautista’s solid defense was causing Ruiz to expend too much energy, and the Mexican would even push out his mouthpiece so he could breathe better. Bautista realized he could absorb Ruiz’s best combination, and the visitor started clinching and clashing heads with the Filipino, to the consternation of the crowd. Short flurries were constanly being exchanged, and almost every time, Ruiz would tie Bautista up. Those early rounds were also marked by several low blows by Ruiz, which fortunately did not find their mark. At the end of the fourth round, Ruiz leaned on his thighs, catching his breath. The fight had reached a turning point.
With more variety in his punches and renewed confidence, Bautista turned up the pressure, with Ruiz tryng to showboat and show that he was okay. A solid left to the body would draw a grimace from the Mexican, and the crowd knew that Boom Boom had him. Ruiz’s punches were losing their sting. His father kept motioning and screaming for him to attack, but Bautista was mostly unaffected. Each fighter had a small cut on the head from all the clinching.
In the seventh round, as action was picking up, Ruiz and Bautista banged heads again. This time, blood started flowing profusely down the side of Bautista’s forehead onto his face. Tapdasan quickly stepped in and called for the ring physician once again. The ugly gash was ruled to be dangerous, and the fight was stopped.
The judges were unanimous in giving the win to Bautista, but some parties disagreed with the margin of victory, arguing that Ruiz had made the fight close. But the question was the volume of punches Ruiz threw, it was the impact and the quality of the blows. Even if he threw more, his punches were ineffective beyond the third round, as Bautista was wading through them like monsoon flood. If the fight had gone on, Ruiz would have gone down towards the end of the fight.
The disappointment that spectators expressed was not because of either boxer, though some did complain that Ruiz held too much after saying at the weigh-in that Boom Boom’s style had not changed. Their disappointment was also caused by not seeing their hero consummate the victory on his own terms. Once again, they left feeling the experience was incomplete.
“You could see Boom Boom’s improvement,” says ALA Promotions CEO Michael Aldeguer. “He has more power now, and he’s had to overcome a lot to get to this point.”
ALA is now considering a third fight with Ruiz to settle the issue once and for all. The importance of this fight was not lost on fight fans, as it could have marked the end of a fighter’s career even before he had had the chance to reach the pinnacle of his profession.
In the undercard, 18-year-old Jayson Pagara scored his 27th win in 28 fights and 16th knockout with a sweet demolition of Mexican Juan Carlos Gallegos. Early in the fight, Pagara kept testing his right hand which he had been strengthening in training. Finally, he fell back on his old staple, the left jab and hook, and floored the visitor. Pagara may be sent to the US to train, since at 140 pounds, he will have trouble finding sparring partners here.
* * *
Congratulations to Karl Heinz Neumann for the succesful opening of Der Kaiserhof German Restaurant on Rahmann St., just off Mango Ave. It is a new place for discriminating diners and media personalities in Cebu to find excellent food and select German beers.