THE Philippine men’s boxing team is assured of three medals in the 30th Southeast Asian Games following solid performances from Charly Suarez and Rogen Ladon in the quarterfinals on Thursday at the PICC Forum in Manila City.
Suarez secured the first stoppage win of the tournament, scoring a second-round technical-knockout win over Min Ankar Paing of Myanmar while Ladon took a majority decision win over Suguro Aldoms of Indonesia in the day’s curtain raiser.
Those wins atoned for John Marvin’s loss in the final match of the evening after the 2017 SEA Games gold medalist lost a split decision to Truong Dinh Hoang of Vietnam.
Suarez, a two-time SEA Games gold medallist, gave the home crowd plenty to cheer about.
After a conservative first round, the 31-year-old started to be more aggressive in the second frame and got rewarded with a booming straight right hand which floored Paing for the first time in the match.
Smelling blood, the lightweight representative never let up on his attack, swarming on his opponent which forced the referee to stop the contest.
“Yun yung chance ko na nakikita kong nakakatama ako so inuulit-ulit ko lang yun,” Suarez said. “Unexpected yung nangyari, basta ginawa ko lang yung best ko para manalo, so hindi ko akalain na di na aabot sa judges.”
Ladon, on the other hand, was made to sweat by Suguro who looked really good in the early goings of the contest.
The Indonesian got his groove in the first two rounds but ultimately, Ladon’s experience worked to his favor, outboxing his foe in the final three round to secure a comfortable 4-1 decision in their flyweight bout.
What would have been a perfect night for the Philippines took a turn for the worse as Marvin, one of the top bets of the country in the sport, failed to go through.
Truong dropped Marvin with an overhand right midway through the first to eventually take control of the match and pull off the upset.
Knowing that he needs to overcome a big deficit in the scorecards, Marvin continued to stay on the pockets- looking to land solid blows, but the Vietnamese just wouldn’t bulge as he stayed toe to toe with the aggressive Filipino-British.
It was enough to sway three of the five judges to his favor.
The semifinals resumes on Friday, 3 p.m. in the same venue.