How Mayol lost a won fight!

Cebuano boxing promoter, Mr. Rex Wakee Salud, said that Filipino challenger Rodel Mayol should have been proclaimed the winner in that World Boxing Organization (WBO) light flyweight championship fight last Sunday against Puerto Rican title holder Ivan Calderon. I believe that Mr. Salud was correct although the present rule, the one apparently used in that contest where Calderon was declared unfit to continue the fight, seems to be so ambiguous that its interpretation has been somehow left to depend on so many imponderables like which home court the match is held.

International sports commentators, covering events like boxing, usually brief their audience with the rules applied to a certain contest. These regulations are usually flashed on tv screens and from the comments, we get some understanding of how fights are governed. I like to believe that world boxing bodies provide copies of the applicable rules to opposing camps and better still discuss these before the match so that spectators and especially such concerned persons as managers, coaches and trainers, are guided accordingly.

Of particular interests are the rules governing injuries arising from head butts. In combat sports like boxing, heads are likely to clash. More often than not, the banging together of the combatants’ heads is not intended but they do cause wounds. The rule, we think, is that when a fight is stopped before the end of a fourth round for the reason that a boxer, being injured by an accidental head butt, is unfit to continue, then it is declared a “no-contest”. But, if the injury is not so serious and the bout is allowed to go on, the pugilist who inflicted the injury is deducted one point in that round obviously to compensate for the disadvantage of being wounded.

In Mayol’s quest, actually, the third for a world championship belt, he and champion Calderon banged heads in the third (?) round, inflicting an injury on the latter. But, the wound was not so serious as to stop the fight. Few rounds later, the injury aggravated, not by head butts, but by legitimate blows. The ring physician recommended the halting of the bout.

Mr. Salud thought that Mayol should have been adjudged winner by technical knock out. As we witnessed on television, it did not happen that way. They went to the score cards. One judge had Mayol a victor, the other judge scored for Calderon and the third had an even scoring. The result was a technical draw and the Puerto Rican retained his belt.

While Mr. Salud’s position anchored on solid ground, I thought Mayol and his corner men could have prevented the intervention of judges. He could have let his hands decide the bout. Regrettably, they fought the wrong fight. The methodology they used was flawed, They failed to take advantage of the many pluses enjoyed by the Filipino (more importantly, the Mandauehanon) pug.

Rodel, apart from being taller than his foe, enjoyed a reach advantage. He should have kept his distance with a miscellany of jabs, and combinations of punches, and scored points in the earlier rounds.   Rodel’s record showed that he had comparably more power than the champion. Perhaps, his corner men saw this too and they could have been convinced that he could knock Calderon out cold.

But, Rodel and his corner people forgot the fundamental theory that a knockout can come when it presents itself. A fighter, heavy with his punches, does not have to look to knock his opponent out every time he unleashes his blows. That precisely was what we saw that fateful Sunday morning. Instead of slowing Calderon with body blows, he was, hoping to score a quick kayo, head hunting.

I sensed that the Puerto Rican, on one hand, felt Mayol’s power in the few times the latter landed clear shots and on the other hand, realized that the Filipino could take his best punches in their exchange. That should explain why they clinched more. It was the champion’s strategy to keep his belt. Unfortunately, Rodel was suckered into accommodating his opponent. And, sadly, because Mayol lost a won fight, we allowed the chance of having another Filipino world boxing champ slip away.

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