Fuentes loses to Thai in world title bid

ALA Boxing’s Rocky Fuentes failed to win the IBF flyweight title as he lost via unanimous decision against Amnat Ruenroeng in Thailand, Wednesday. After 12 rounds, all three judges scored the fight in the Thai’s favor. One judge scored it 117-111 while the other two posted identical marks of 116-112.

With the win, the Thai champion raised his record to 12 wins without a loss with five knockouts. Fuentes on the other hand drops down to 35 wins, seven losses, and two draws with 20 knockouts.

The first two rounds were close but the Thai fighter won the third handily.

The Filipino fighter turned the tide in the sixth round as he forced the Thai to turn defensive. Fuentes was attacking, but he failed to connect on most of his punches. He was stalking Ruenroeng but couldn’t catch him with a flush punch that would have turned the tide to his favor.

The Thai was content in throwing jabs and moving out of harm’s way. Ruenroeng was so confident that he was up in the scorecards that he barely did anything in the 12th round.

This fight was initially scheduled as an IBF eliminator to determine the number one challenger. However, Moruti Mthalane vacated the belted after he was offered to defend the title in Thailand. Mthlane’s camp said that they didn’t want to fight “for peanuts” on foreign soil, which made them relinquish the title instead.

Known as the Road Warrior, Fuentes made a good living by beating Japanese fighters in Japan. However, he wasn’t busy enough to grab a win against the Thai.
 
With Fuentes’ defeat, Donnie Nietes, Merlito Sabillo, and John Riel Casimero remain the only Filipino boxing world champions.

Even if the Thai boxer only had 11 fights prior to his bout against Fuentes, he’s actually much older, at 34-years of age. The 27-year-old Fuentes could not capitalize on this advantage as Ruenruong was an expert in doing very little, while making sure his opponent looked as bad as possible.

The Thai employed a tactic similar to another old fighter in Bernard Hopkins, as he was extremely economical with his punches, while using his movement and defense to make sure the power-punching Fuentes never got any sort of rhythm.  - AMD, GMA News