Pinoy Power 2 - Did not come to the full force?

August 17th, 2009

Two of the most anticipated Filipino fighters were emerged victorious last Saturday night at the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas Nevada. Mark Melligen (16-1 12 KOs) scores a KO win by setting up his right jab from first through the fourth round to land a very powerful right cross that KO's Ernesto Cepeda (39-13 34 KO). Melligen was magnificent in the bout. It's actually a good bout to warm up the crowd before the two 12 round events.

In the co-feature, Bernabe Concepcion (28-3 16 KOs) lost by disqualification when at the end of the seventh round and after the bell had clearly rung, landed a powerful right hook that KO's Steven Luevano (37-1 15 KOs) flat on his back. It was a very disappointing undercard for all the pinoy who came in to watch Concepcion capture a world title. Bernabe Concepcion started very strong in the first round and even rocked Luevano with couple of body shots, but in the 2nd round, Luevano started to control the fight using his long right jab and sneaky left hand all night long. Concepcion is too tentative to engage and couldn't able to find his range to land something. In my previous article
(http://www.8countnews.com/news/125/ARTICLE/1804/2009-08-04.html) I did write "The usual flat-footed Concepcion will not work against a speedy Luevano". Bernabe was on his way to loosing the fight. It appeared that Bernabe Concepcion have bait into Luevano's boxer tactics than the slugger puncher most pinoy fans are expected to see in exchanging non-stop attack. Luevano’s strategy was more of a counter puncher/boxer and waited patiently for Concepcion to make mistakes so he could capitalize and score. Concepcion was not able to dictate the pace, he would land good body shots occasionally but Luevano would come right back sending Concepcion into retreat mode. As the seven round boards clanked, both have exchanged flurries of punches until the bell rung. Bernabe must have thought it he is still in the fight that he throws an illegal huge right hook that KO'd Luevano, grading by Michael Marley's D for Dumb. It was a very disappointing move for Bernabe
Concepcion.

I guess Luevano have also felt the power of Concepcion that he decided to do an acting job rather than get tired and risk getting hit with some more powershots and continue fighting. I’m not saying that he wasn’t hurt, but if you watch the bout, Luevano was still able to look at the referee and demanded complaint through his facial reaction before he decided to drop himself out of the canvass and through the opposite direction of where the punch came from, he is supposedly a champion and should have stood up. Imagine if Pacquiao pretended to drop KO'd after Barrera hit him after the break during their first and second bout just to get a DQ win?!!!!! What would we think of him then? That would be outrageous! But nevertheless, Luevano has got the right to do that acting job and the referee did the right thing in halting the bout in favor of Luevano via disqualification.

In the main event, without a knockout, it was off to the Twilight Zone known as the Judge’s scorecards. After landing series of hard left hooks and uppercuts with no current effects, I figured Nonito Donaire (22,1-0 14 KOs) would have decided to box and circle around the ring to avoid the pressure from Rafael Concepcion (13-4-1 8 KOs). It’s very evident that the weight does have an affect in the outcome of fights. The heavier weight means better center of gravity. The heavier weight could mean heavier leverage or power, which means, a heavier guy would be much difficult to knock down. And a heavier guy would be more powerful puncher. And the way Rafael Concepcion punch, he put his weight in them. In spite of Donaire's face being beaten on occasion to a pulp, he did more to win the bout. Tactical and pensive with Rafael coming forward and Donaire looking carefully strategic, took on the role of the boxer while Rafael was the brawler. Donaire
controlled most of the pace to win the fight via unanimous decision.

The Judge’s scorecards read like this:

Max Glucas = 117-111
Duane Ford = 115-113
Jerry Roth = 116-112

Overall, I was disappointed that this second edition of Pinoy Power was not as exciting as the first fight.