De Asis Shocks, Stops Undefeated Marcial in Two
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
Unbeaten junior lightweight Anthony “Rocky” Marcial suffered a shocking 2nd round TKO at the hands of veteran southpaw Jack De Asis in an action-packed, top-class fight card at the Cebu Coliseum.
Marcial who had an impressive record of 14-0 with 13 knockouts was coming off an 8th round TKO of tough veteran Jaime Barcelona last May 8, 2009 raising questions about his fighting too soon after that.
De Asis who claimed his career had been mismanaged and he had not trained hard in the past was coming off a 7th round TKO at the hands of Thailand’s Chonlatarn Piriyapinyo last April 3 in Bangkok.
It was a different De Asis that entered the ring against Marcial who is regarded as one of the country’s promising young prospects. De Asis who is now being guided by longtime boxing man Dante Almario of Muntinlupa said he had trained hard and was sharply focused for the clash with Marcial.
De Asis showed his intentions early in the fight by refusing to back-off despite the vaunted punching power of Marcial and engaged him in some torrid exchanges in which De Asia invariably came out ahead by using his experience to advantage.
He slipped a punch and then dropped Marcial late in round one with a cracking left hook and out-boxed the WBO Oriental champion who made the mistake of wanting to slug it out with no attention to defense hoping that his raw power would prevail.
De Asis continued to fight smartly, picking his spots and battered Marcial whose left eye was almost totally shut and his right also in bad shape as a result of the stinging right straights and hard left-right combinations thrown by De Asis.
Marcial also suffered a nasty cut that bled badly but when referee Teddy Alivio stopped the bout to ask ring physician Dr. Jose Unabia to examine Marcial he ruled that Marcial couldn’t continue without risk of further injury to his eye and not because of the cut.
After a considerable delay and discussion there was an attempt to declare the fight a technical draw because of an alleged accidental head-butt which if Alivio had signaled would have resulted in a technical draw and saved the unbeaten record of Marcial. However, Dr. Unabia stood his ground with support from “The Main Event” panel insisting that the fight was being stopped because of the eye injuries of Marcial and not the cut, the Games and Amusement Board officials had no choice but to declare De Asis the winner by TKO.
Well-known promoter Sammy Gello-ani who handles Marcial said “he is young and will definitely learn from his mistakes in this fight. Don’t worry. He’ll be fine and he’ll come back for sure because he has the talent and the power and now he has learned by the experience gained from his first loss.”