By Ronnie Nathanielsz
ALA Boxing Gym's "Stars of the Future" won handily but regrettably failed to shine before a jam-packed crowd at the Waterfront Hotel and Casino in Cebu on Saturday night.
It wasn't the fault of unbeaten Prince Albert Pagara or Mark "Magnifico" Magsayo as much as it was the tactics of their opponents, Nicaragua's bantamweight champion Yesner Talavera and Mexico's Eduardo Montoya.
Talavera ran all night long to avoid the power punches of Pagara and looked more like a marathon man than the fighter who vowed to demonstrate his bravery in front of Filipino boxing fans although he launched a few meaningless flurries where most of his punches were caught on the gloves of Prince Albert who laughed in the face of the Nicaraguan's pitter-patter punches and according to Dong Secuya of philboxing.com even his trainer and former two division world champion Rosendo Alvarez was seen shaking his head and laughing at the antics of his boxer who taunted Pagara to come after him but quickly ran when he sensed trouble.
Eventually Pagara nailed Talavera with a solid right to the solar plexus that took the stuffing out of the Nicaraguan who was dropped at 1:38 of the seventh round and although Prince Albert tried to put him away with a flurry Talavera's footwork kept him out of further trouble.
At the end of a disappointingly dull fight all three judges had Pagara winning handily with Salven Lagumbay and Greg Ortega turning in identical shutout scorecards of 120-107 while Edward Ligas had Pagara the winner 119-108.
With the win Pagara grabbed the vacant WBO Intercontinental junior featherweight belt to stretch his unbeaten record to 25 wins with 18 knockouts. Talavera who moved up in weight to face Pagara lost for the third time moving out of the comfort of the bantamweight division and fell to 15-4-1 with 4 knockouts.
Mark Magsayof failed to live up to his "magnifico" monicker as he appeared tense in seeking a knockout instead of waiting for the knockout to come to him, often missing with wild punches.
However, Magsayo connected with a flurry of six consecutive body shots to send his Mexican opponent Eduardo Montoya to the canvas at the 1:15 mark of the 7th round but failed to finish off Montoya, the younger brother of Rosbel Montoya who scored a big upset when he beat Prince Albert 's elder brother Jason Pagara by a unanimous decision on September 10, 2011 after which Pagara who avenged that loss with a crushing 6th round TKO in a rematch on August 18, 2012.
A frustrated Magsayo captured the WBO youth featherweight title and improved his record to 13 wins with 10 knockouts while Montoya who fought to survive but at least didn't run, suffered his 5th defeat in 23 fights.
