Earlier today fights fans got a treat, with a thriller in Thailand, marred only by the fact former WBC Minimumweight champion Panya Pradabsri (43-3, 27) got a late Christmas gift, with a majority decision win over the criminally unfortunate Carlos Canizales (27-3-1, 19) to claim the vacant WBC Light Flyweight title, and become a become a 2-weight world champion.
On paper this looked set to be a special fight, with two very good, exciting, action fighters involved. And it proved to be that way, despite the scorecards marring what was a genuinely fantastic contest.
The first round was one of the bouts most competitive, with Pradabsri starting well, pressing the action for much of the first half, before Canizales starting pressing back, forcing his will onto the action and showing that he was the bigger, stronger, heavier handed fighter. He continued to prove that through much of the fight, often being the man taking the center of the ring, forcing Pradabsri to be the man on the outside. Although Pradabsri is a solid boxer, it seemed like he was being comfortably out landed by the hard hitting Venezuelan. It also seemed clear that Canizales’ shots were taking a toll on Pradabsri, with the Thai often being backed up by the shots, something that rarely happened when the Thai landed, even when Pradabsri landed perfectly timed and clean counter shots.
After 4 rounds it seemed like we were getting a well contested bout, though one that seemed to show a naturally big Light Flyweight, who could be a strong Flyweight, taking on a man who had moved up from 105lbs and was only really an average sized Light Flyweight, at best. Canizales was stronger, more powerful and bullying his man at times, especially late in rounds as he looked to put punctuation marks on the judges. Despite this the judges really weren’t giving him a fair shake, and this was clear early on, with open scoring after 4 rounds giving the Thai the lead, with scores of 40-36, an abhorrent score, and 3937, a very poor score, along with a 38-38 draw, which was a stretch but a do-able stretch.
The aggression from Canizales continued in the middle rounds. Pradabsri regularly looked to land single eye catching shots, most notable single counters as Canizales came to him, with both often landing good body shots. Despite the momentary success from Pradabsri he continued to look like he was coming off second best, and even he seemed to realise that. He started round 6 more aggressively, pushing Canizales back early in the round, though by the end the Venezuelan came back with interest, and seemed to stumble the Thai, for the first time in the fight. It was a good 90 seconds or so from Pradabsri, but the lasting impressions were the two huge attacks from Canizales. To his credit Pradabsri had one of his best rounds in round 7, as he rolled the dice, came forward, and forced Canizales on to the back foot. The visitor had moments of success boxing and moving, but in the end finished the round coming forward, and it almost looked like he was suggesting to Pradabsri that he was better than the Thai however the fight was being fought. Pradabsri again tried to start well in round 8, but the tempo really seemed to drop off for much of the round, with Canizales boxing more intelligently and Pradabsri taking the opportunity when he could to create space and catch his breath. One of the highlights for Pradabsri came when he made Canizales over-commit and look silly, but by the end of the round the Thai seemed to be wilting under the pressure. It had been a somewhat competitive 4 round stretch in the middle of the fight, and that’s when we saw the scorecards again, this time they were 76-76 and 78-74, twice, to Pradabsri. Again it was hard to fathom how the judges had scored it that way, though it wasn’t a shut out, it was clear that the Thai local was getting very lucky with the judges.
Likely knowing he was behind, fighting on the road in Thailand after twice having his heart broken on the scorecards in Japan, Canizales looked to take it out of the judges hands in the final rounds, particularly rounds 10, 11 and 12 which were big rounds for the Venezuelan. All credit goes to Pradabsri for staying on his feet at times, and firing back rather than looking for a way out, or just covering up and running, but the final 3 rounds were undeniably rounds for the visitor, who really beat up the local. It seemed like Pradabsri had been injured with his face showing clear signs of punishment, and a potentially broken jaw, as he seemed unable to close his mouth in the final rounds, but he managed to stay up, right to the bell.
After the 12 rounds it seemed clear that the fight had been competitive, at times, but wasn’t close. Canizales had dominated large portions of the bout, and it was hard to give Panya more than 4 rounds, if you were being generous. It seemed we had a clear winner.
But then boxing did boxing. With the scores read out as 114-114, 115-113, 116-112, before Pradabsri got his hand raised, to boos from his own fans who knew this was a wretched result to what had been a very good fight. It was near enough impossible to find 7 or 8 rounds to give to the Thai who get incredibly lucky, whilst, once again, Canizales can feel massively aggrieved at how boxing has treat him. He is one of the elite Light Flyweights, as he has now proven against Ryoichi Taguchi, Kenshiro Teraji and Panya Pradabsri, but this is definitely going to leave a very sour taste in the mouth for him.
If the WBC are going to act in the interest of fairness, a rematch wouldn’t be a bad idea, albeit maybe on neutral territory, though of course Canizales isn’t a well backed fighter and the WBC may well look to grab money rather than act in the interest of fairness.
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