Sanchez knocks out Mayol in IBF title fight

Everything was going very well for Rodel Mayol in the early part of his fight against the IBF super flyweight champion Juan Carlos Sanchez of Mexico. Going into the eighth round of the fight, Mayol was leading 68-64 in the unofficial scorecards of Marco Antonio Barrera and Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. who were covering the fight at ringside. However, the defending champion unleashed a cruel attack to the body that bothered Mayol early in the eighth round. Mayol showed that he did not like the body punches by ducking down low and covering his mid-section but the defending champion kept on throwing punches aimed at that area. Mayol launched a spirited counter-attack late in the eighth round but it was starting to look like the tide has turned in favor of the defending champion. In the ninth round, Sanchez again went back to attacking Mayol’s body and when the Filipino challenger dropped his guard again, Sanchez connected with a clean left straight that decked Mayol. After seating a left, Mayol took two steps back and lost his balance. He fell through the ropes and out of the ring. Barrera and Chavez helped push Mayol back onto the ring but he was unable to beat the referee’s ten count. Mayol won most of the rounds before the knockout. He even scored a flash knockdown in the fifth round although the replay showed that the legs of the two fighters got entangled. In the seventh round, Mayol suffered a cut above his right eye after an accidental clash of heads. The super flyweight division is three pounds above the flyweight division where Mayol usually fights. Last May, Mayol scored one of the biggest wins of his life with a 10 round destruction over the tough and rugged Julio Cesar Miranda. After that, Mayol was set to be the main event of a local fight card. However, he pulled out when he was offered a title fight. With the loss, Mayol drops his record to 31 wins, six losses, and two draws. Sanchez on the other hand kept his title and upped his record to 15 wins, one loss, and one draw. — LBG, GMA News