Laurente delivers 2nd straight holiday beating to Balongcas

PARANAQUE CITY, Philippines—It seems bantamweight Monico Laurente has made a holiday tradition of beating Adelino Balongcas. Laurente (21-7, 5 knockouts) of Parañaque City scored a sixth-round technical knockout over the overmatched Balongcas (5-18-4, 2 KO) of Tanza, Cavite at the Elorde Sports Center in Paranaque City on Thursday night. Laurente scored an almost similar win against Balongcas last year, a fifth-round KO victory on December 18.   Laurente dropped Balongcas with a sweeping left hook late in the sixth round, pounding him until the end of the round. Balongcas did not come out for the seventh round. "I'm just lucky I guess," said Laurente of his performance. The win was Laurente's third straight since losing consecutively to Yuta Nagai and Eden Sonsona by KO. Laurente, whose older brother Dennis is the ninth-ranked welterweight by the World Boxing Council (WBC), has come up just short twice in his bid of winning the Philippine Games and Amusements Board and the Pan Asian Boxing Association (PABA) bantamweight titles, but says he expects to challenge for another regional title in 2012. In the co-featured bout, bantamweight Ryan Origenes (9-3-1, 4 KOs) of Parañaque City halted a three-fight losing slump by pounding a unanimous decision victory against Vic Racuma (5-24-1, 1 KO). All three scorecards read 80-71. The bout was competitive for the first round but soon descended into an ugly bloodletting as Racuma was too brave for his own good and Origenes lacked the knockout power to bring the fight to a merciful ending. The referee never seemed close to stopping the fight despite Racuma's obvious inability to defend himself. Racuma, who lost his 10th straight fight, was dropped in the second round by a right cross. He managed to get up but soon after sustained a bad cut that brought the doctor up to examine the wound. Racuma's corner lacked a trained cutman or a coagulant substance to stop the bleeding, employing only a towel to try and halt the flow. Racuma made it to the final bell and earned some extra Christmas money the hard way. Other results Unbeaten flyweight Roman Canto (4-0, 2 KOs) of Parañaque City survived a difficult test from Mark Joseph Costa (3-4) of La Trinidad, Benguet, winning a six-round unanimous decision by the scores of 58-56, 59-55 and 59-55. Canto, who is trained by 1996 Olympic light flyweight silver medalist Mansueto "Onyok" Velasco, had it all his way through the first three rounds, leaping in with one-two combinations on a smiling Costa. Costa finally came alive in the fourth round and overwhelmed Canto with his wild attack, pushing him to the canvas four times. Canto survived the round and boxed safely in the sixth to the delight of his sizable contingent. Slick featherweight Randy Braga (6-0, 1 KO) of Parañaque City jabbed and potshotted his way to a sixth-round unanimous decision over Vergel Poton (1-3, 0 KO) of Las Piñas City (58-55, 59-54 and 59-55). Braga scored a flash knockdown in the third round but was content to use his southpaw movement and fluid combination punching to outthink the aggressive Poton. In a battle of mohawk-wearing super flyweights, Jeffrey Francisco (2-0-1, 0 KO) of Parañaque City won a four-round unanimous decision over Roy Lagrada (1-1) of Lipa City by the scores of 40-36, and 39-37 twice. Francisco, 19, utilized good body work early in the fight and appeared to be on his way to a TKO victory after badly stunning Lagrada in the second stanza. Lagrada recovered well in the third round but continued to find himself outmuscled by the wild Francisco. In the bantamweight division, Jonathan Ligas (2-1-1) of Mandaluyong City outslugged Esteban Hayahay (3-2, 1 KO) of Parañaque City, winning by a six-round split decision. One judge scored the bout 58-57 for Hayahay, but was overruled by the remaining two who scored it 58-54 and 58-56 in favor of Ligas. — JVP, GMA News Ryan Songalia is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) and contributes to GMANews.TV and the Filipino Reporter newspaper. From January through April, he will cover the Daily News Golden Gloves tournament for the New York Daily News. He can be reached at ryan@ryansongalia.com . An archive of his work can be found atwww.ryansongalia.com . Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ryansongalia.