By: William Holmes
The Venetian in Macao China was the host site for tonight’s HBO PPV offering. Two world titles were on the line, as well flyweight title eliminator featuring a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
The first bout of the night was a WBO junior welterweight title fight between Jessie Vargas (25-0) and Antonio DeMarco (31-3-1).
Vargas fought out of an orthodox stance and DeMarco was a southpaw. Vargas las landing his lead right hook in the first round and was targeting the body of DeMarco. DeMarco’s straight left hand was landing in the first round, but it was a tight round to call.
The second round was also tight and a head butt caused a bruise under the left eye of Vargas. The third round however was action packed and Vargas landing the harder and crisper shots. Both boxers were throwing a lot of punches when in tight.
Vargas stayed to the body in the fourth round and was beginning to snap the head of DeMarco with his right hand. Both boxers were getting the crowd’s attention with their punches and DeMarco was taking the punches of Vargas well.
Both Vargas and DeMarco’s face were showing signs of swelling in the fifth round but Vargas had DeMarco stunned from a combination in the middle of the round. Vargas’ power shots were landing at a high rate this round and it was Vargas’ best round of the night at this point.
Vargas continued to outwork DeMarco in the sixth round but started to tire in the seventh.
DeMarco had his best round of the night in the seventh round when he was snapping Vargas’ head with short uppercuts and may have hurt him with a left hook as the round came to an end.
Vargas did better in the eighth round and showed he was willing to exchange with DeMarco. Both boxers continued to exchange ferociously in the ninth round with Vargas landing the more numerous punches while DeMarco landed the harder punches.
Vargas’ nose looked like it was busted by the tenth round and DeMarco was still throwing crisp punches. In the last two rounds it was clear that DeMarco needed a knockout to win, but he was unable to keep up the exciting pace of the first ten rounds and score the fight saving knockout.
Jessie Vargas won by decision in an exciting bout with scores of 116-112 on all three scorecards.
Vasyl Lomachenko (2-1) and Chonlatam Piriyapinyo (51-1) met in the second televised bout of the night for the WBO Featherweight Title. Lomachenko is a former two time Olympic gold medalist while Piriyapinyo’s toughest fight of his career was against the mythical Chris John.
Piriyapinyo, a southpaw, was touching Piriyapinyo early on with his jab and was showing good movement. Lomachenko picked up the action in the second round and was able to land his right hook counter and was landing punches from a wide variety of angles.
Lomachenko hurt Piriyapinyo with two good body punches in the third round and ended it with a solid four punch combination. By the fourth round it was clear that Piriyapinyo was simply at classed and was getting punched from nearly every angle possible. Piriyapinyo was knocked down in the fourth round from a four punch combination that started with a right uppercut and ended with a left hook.
Lomachenko continued to school Piriyapinyo in the fifth and sixth rounds and was showing non stop movement. Piriyapinyo, to his credit, never stopped moving forward but was unable to catch Lomachenko and simply got tagged with combinations.
Lomachenko hurt his right hand in the seventh round but was still winning the fight throwing with one hand and snapping the head of Piriyapinyo with crisp left uppercuts and hooks. Lomachenko did throw out a few left hands in the ninth and tenth rounds, but he didn’t throw hard punches with his left and still mainly threw punches with his right hand.
Lomachenko, despite fighting only one hand, hurt Piriyapinyo twice in the eleventh round with a left uppercut to the chin and a left hook to the body near the end of the round.
The final round was all Lomachenko as he simply put on a twelve round clinic against Piriyapinyo.
All three judges scored the bout 120-107 for Vasyl Lomachenko.
The final fight on the undercard was between Zou Shiming (5-0) and Kwanpichit Onesongchaigym (27-0-2) in a WBO Flyweight eliminator.
Shiming was noticeably taller than Onesongchaigym and both boxers fought out of an orthodox stance. Shiming was landing his left hook in the first round and appeared early on to be the more technically skilled boxer.
Onesongchaigym came out aggressive to the body in the second round but was met with multiple combinations from Shiming. Shiming caught Onesongchaigym with a beautiful straight right counter in the second that sent Onesongchaigym to the floor. Onesongchaigym was able to get back to his feet but tasted the canvas again when Shiming connected with an accurate right hook.
Onesongchaigym gathered his senses by the third round but Shiming was still landing with more accuracy than Onesongchaigym. Onesongchaigym was warned for a low blow in the fourth round and was hurt again in the fifth round when Shiming connected with a combination in the middle of the ring.
Onesongchaigym landed another low blow in the sixth round and was deducted one point by the referee. Shiming answered by knocking Onesongchaigym down with a combination that may have been more due to Onesongchaigym losing his balance than by clean punches landing.
Onesongchaigym landed another low blow to start the seventh round and the referee warned Onesongchaigym that he may get disqualified if he lands another low blow. Shiming’s left eye had signs of swelling in the middle of the seventh round and Onesongchaigym was able to land a couple of decent punches.
Shiming came out firing combinations at the start of the eighth round but did get tagged by a hard right cross from Onesongchaigym. Onesongchaigym was throwing some bombs in the eighth round but Shiming was throwing a higher volume of punches. A clash of heads caused a cut near Shiming’s left eye in the eighth round and the fight was quickly stopped for the ringside doctor to check it out.
Shiming coasted in the ninth round and stayed out of the way of danger, but Onesongchaigym was able to get Shiming to exchange recklessly with him in the tenth round and both boxers landed good, hard, clean punches.
Freddie Roach urged Shiming to finish Onesongchaigym before the start of the eleventh round, but Shiming didn’t have the power to knock Onesongchaigym out. He was able to stay out of harm’s way, however, and did score a knockdown as the fight came to an end, but Onesongchaigym beat the count.
The final scores were 119-106, 119-106, and 120-103.