Too little, too late for gutsy Yang

Chinese junior welterweight drops world title fight to wily Argentine

Hail Cesar - he's still perfect.

After 13 years of fighting in relative obscurity, Argentina's Cesar Cuenca made the most of his first world title shot, improving to 48-0 with a lopsided 12-round decision over China's Ik Yang Lianhui to capture the International Boxing Federation's vacant junior welterweight (140 lbs) crown on Saturday night at the Venetian Macao.

The victory moves Cuenca into a tie with Floyd Mayweather for third place on the list of modern boxing's longest undefeated streaks, one win back of Rocky Marciano's 49, but still well short of the 87-0 mark achieved by Mexico's Julio Cesar Chavez a generation ago.

For Yang, the 30-year-old slugger from Dalian, Liaoning province, it was his first loss in 20 outings (19-1), and the scores of 117-110, 116-109 and 115-110 underlined one of the ring's time-honored truths: when skill trumps will, just being tough is rarely enough.

With only two stoppages on his ledger, the 34-year-old Cuenca is not known as a big puncher, but he was awarded a debatable knockdown by Filipino referee Danrex Tapdasan in the closing seconds of the opening round when the backpedalling Yang stumbled but remained on his feet.

Cuenca relied on his piston-like southpaw jab to keep Yang off his rhythm and comfortably win the first four rounds, but in the fifth Yang rallied to floor the Argentine with a straight right.

Cuenca survived the knockdown by going into pot-shot mode, and Yang's valiant effort to turn the remainder of the fight into a street brawl was frustrated by Cuenca's fleet feet and savvy in-fighting.

Clearly needing his 15th KO to win it, Yang unleashed his heavy artillery in the final round, landing power shots with both fists. He had Cuenca on the defensive until having a point deducted for pushing the Argentine to the canvas after a clinch in which both fighters appeared to be at fault.

"I think my experience made the difference," Cuenca said afterward. "We worked very hard to prepare for this fight and he hurt me with some punches, but I was able to be a bit smarter than him."

Justin Fortune, who substituted for the ailing Freddie Roach in Yang's corner, said his fighter simply failed to execute their strategy, which called for volume punching.

"When you're only throwing one shot at a time it's never going to be enough," Fortune said.

While Top Rank promoter Bob Arum didn't dispute the decision, he lashed out at referee Tapdasan.

"That was one of the worst jobs of refereeing I've ever seen," the 83-year-old Hall of Famer told AFP. "It was just horrible. The first knockdown was not a knockdown; Yang was off-balance but stayed on his feet. And the point that was deducted in the last round was just ludicrous. If a point had to be deducted from anybody, it should have been the other guy.

"I think the referee let himself be intimidated by the Argentine corner. I really have to question appointing somebody like that, who has never refereed anything more than a six-round fight."

On the undercard, Hong Kong junior bantamweight Rex Tso, ranked in the world's top 10 by all four major sanctioning organizations, improved to 17-0 with a fourth-round stoppage of Thailand's Khunkhiri Wisaruth (21-12-1) while Macao welterweight Ng Kuok Kun upped his record to 8-0 with a fourth-round KO of Thailand's Phompetch Gym (6-4).

murraygreig@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 07/20/2015 page23)