By Ronnie Nathanielsz
Fernando Lumacad, the Philippines No.1 ranked flyweight suffered a one-punch knockout at the hands of Mexican warrior Jorge “Travieso” Arce in a WBC super flyweight eliminator at the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, Sunday morning Manila time.
Up to the time he got nailed flush on the jaw with a right hook Lumacad had boxed intelligently even opening up a cut under the left eye of Arce with a jab in round two which the TV commentators described as a “better round for Lumacad” who they said “looks like a pretty good little boxer.”
There was not much action in the opening round as Arce kept moving forward but in far more methodical fashion compared to the brawler who was twice world light flyweight champion, clearly showing the effects of having trainer Ignacio “Nacho” Beristain in his corner.
After a good second round in which Lumacad counter-punched catching Arce with a solid jab and a hook to the body he appeared to get a little over-confident and careless and was nailed with a right over a left jab that he threw. The clearly smaller Lumacad went down on the seat of his pants and failed to beat the count although he didn’t appear to be badly hurt. The time was :35 seconds of the third round.
With the comeback win after he was bludgeoned by Vic Darchinyan and retired in the 11th round of a WBC/WBA/IBF super flyweight title fight last February 7, 2009, Arce redeemed himself although Lumacad isn’t a big puncher and hadn’t previously met a fighter of the caliber of Arce.
In his biggest test to date Lumacad lost in a fight for the vacant Asian Boxing Council title against former world champion Wandee Singwancha in November 2007. Wandee is the same fighter who was knocked out in the 2nd round by the undefeated 18 year old “Marvelous” Marvin Sonsona in a clash for the vacant WBO Oriental flyweight title last May 28 at the Cebu Coliseum.
In a post fight interview Arce said “I saw a lot of film of him (Lumacad) and I know he’s a very technical fighter, very good technically but we did a lot of good work under ‘Nacho’ Beristain and it showed tonight. Arce said he was confident that once Lumacad went down, he wouldn't get up.
One of the surprises while we watched the telecast over Solar Sports was the presence of promoter Sammy Gello-ani in the corner of Lumacad along with manager Ken Smith of the American Boxing Academy in Digos, Davao .
Gello-ani who had accompanied former IBF minimum weight champion Florante Condes to South Africa for a title eliminator against undefeated Nkosinathi Joyi had left before the fight and according to promoter Branco Milenkovic had returned to the Philippines because of a problem.
The persistent efforts of BoxingScene.com, insidesports.ph, Standard Today and Viva Sports to contact Gello-ani were unsuccessful and calls as well as text messages went unanswered, raising serious questions over Gello-ani’s apparent abandonment of Condes in distant South Africa in order to be at ringside for the Lumacad fight.
Condes put up a courageous stand but lost a lopsided decision to Joyi who, according to former two-division world champion Gerry Penalosa is an excellent fighter who was simply too good for Condes.
What compounded Condes’ problems was that his trainer Joven Jimenez was also left behind because, according to Gello-ani he couldn’t get a visa on time.