By Ronnie Nathanielsz

Former World Boxing Council flyweight champion and OPBF bantamweight champion Malcolm Tunacao has scored a twelve round split-decision win over Monico Laurente to capture the vacant Philippine bantamweight title at the open air public plaza in Mandaue City.

The only sour note was the scorecard of judge Arnel Pasion who had Laurente the winner 114-113 while the two other judges Noel Flores and Edwin Barrientos  had Tunacao the winner 115-112 and 115-113.

In contrast, the widely read philboxing.com website reporters had Tunacao winning by a wide 118-109 margin.

Pasion was the same judge who had problems about his scoring in the past against fighters from the famed ALA Gym when some three years ago he scored a bout for the opponent of Rocky Fuentes who had convincingly beaten his opponent.

Pasion was also recently involved in an OPBF title fight in Thailand where two of the judges – a Thai and a Korean scoring referee had Wethya Sakmuangklang winning handily 117-111 last September 5 while Pasion, to the consternation of the Thai fans had Filipino Jun Talape winning by the same 117-111 margin or a swing of 12 points.

Tunacao who looked sharp in sparring used his quickness and out-punched Laurente most of the fight and reportedly overcame the handicap of an injured left hand and used his right convincingly.

There were a couple of occasions when Laurente appeared hurt but Tunacao couldn’t capitalize on this  with slight showers delaying the action while also causing the boxers to slip on the wet canvas. Laurente also had a one point deduction slapped on him for an accidental head-butt in round ten.

Tunacao won the WBC flyweight title with a stunning knockout over Medgoen 3K Battery who had won the title from Filipino ring idol Manny Pacquiao who failed to make the weight and lost his title even before entering the ring where he was knocked out in round three. 

With the win Tunacao improved to 22-2-3 with 15 knockouts while Laurente dropped to  7-3-0 with 1 knockout.