CARLO Paalam moved to the quarterfinals of the Boxing 2nd World Qualification Tournament after a 4-1 decision over Artur Bazeyan of Armenia Thursday at the Indoor Arena Huamark in Bangkok, Thailand.
It was a close contest between the Filipino Olympic silver medalist and his Armenian foe in the men’s 57 kg class, but Paalam eked out the win via a tiebreak as three judges turned in identical scores at the end of the bout.
Three down, two to go
The win moved Paalam two wins away from another trip to the Olympics.
Up next for the Filipino is Jose Luis De Los Santos of the Dominican Republic, a 5-0 winner over Lee Cheng-wei of Taipei.
“Carlo won the first round 3-2, and the second round 5-0,” said Manalo. “Even if he loses the third round 0-5, he would still win the bout 3-2. However, he got a point deduction in the last round for holding and he lost that last round 2-3,” explained Association of Boxing Alliances of the Philippines (ABAP) secretary-general Marcus Jarwin Manalo.
“So, after three rounds, one judge gave it to Carlo, the other one to the Armenian, and it was tied 28-all (because of the deduction) with the three judges.”
Rules state that by the end of three rounds and the scores are tied, judges will have to vote on who they thought won the fight.
“As expected, the three went for Carlo. So the final score was 4-1 for him,” added Manalo.
“We did not agree with the point deduction though, we thought it was the Armenian who was putting his head down and holding. Nonetheless, Carlo did more than enough to win and to get the nod from the four judges.”
National coach Don Abnett said the 25-year-old Paalam boxed well against Bazeyan, 23.
“He boxed good today, landing good backhand straight punches and lead hand hooks. His opponent used clever tactics to make it appear to the referee that Carlo was holding and a point was deducted in the last round,” he said.
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