By Mark Vester

Friday night at the Cebu City Sports Complex in Cebu City, WBO super flyweight champion Fernando Montiel came before a hostile crowd to beat hometown favorite Z Gorres by split-decision. The scores were 115-111 Montiel, 115-111 Gorres, and 114-112 Montiel.

Gorres stood a chance to win the fight, but was hit with two point deductions for holding, once in the tenth round and once in round twelve.

Ringside observers said that Gorres was up on the cards after round nine, but Montiel landing vicious punches in tenth round that had the young Filipino in serious trouble, prompting him to hold Montiel in order to survive the round. A similiar scenario took place in the final round as Gorres was once again rocked and held on to survive. The holding in both rounds prevented him from being knocked out, but also led to the point deductions.

Filipino icon Manny Pacquiao was watching from ringside and told the Cebu Sun Star that Gorres was not aggressive enough.

"It seems Gorres lacks aggressiveness and he needs more combinations," Pacquiao said.

On the undercard,

Rey "Boom-Boom" Bautista knocked out Mexican rival Mariano Gonzales to win the WBO inter-continental and WBO youth super-bantamweight titles by way of a third round knockout.

Jimrex "The Executioner" Jaca stopped WBO Asian-Pacific super featherweight champion Simon Butar-Butar of Indonesia in the seventh round.