By Rey Danseco
HARD-HITTING Drian “Little Espinosa” Francisco and surging Rexon “Pison” Flores convincingly retained their respective titles against game Thai challengers on Saturday night in Sucat, Paranaque City, Metro Manila, Philippines.
Francisco quickly figured out the weakness of the veteran challenger Wanmeechok Singwangcha and he capitalized on the small opening to land a devastating left uppercut to the midsection.
Singwancha grimaced in pain and hardly took his breath. He never tried to get on his feet and referee Virgilio Garcia counted him out at two minutes 20 seconds of the opening round.
The Muntinlupa-based and 24-year old native Occidental Mindoro retained his World Boxing Organization (WBO) Asia Pacific flyweight title in that victory.
Francisco improved to 13-0 with 10 knockouts.
Flores, who is 24-years-old like Francisco, duplicated his unanimous decision win over Terdkiet Jundaeng in their first collision on April 21 last year in Bacoor, Cavite.
The all-Filipino judges accurately gave the fight to Flores by 118-111, 118-110 and 119-112 to keep his World Boxing Organization (WBO) Inter-Continental light flyweight title.
Flores was continuously moved forward, looking for a knockout after he hurt Jundaeng with body shots in the fifth round. But the Thai challenger kept on tying up the Filipino champion and the slippery canvas prevented him to annihilate the Bangkok-based fighter in their 12-round bout that Elorde International Productions staged, supported by Lonsdale and Commando Bear Energy drink and supervised by Filipino-American WBO vice president for Asia Pacific Leon Panoncillo along with Games and Amusement Board (GAB) commission Angel Bautista.
Flores, who is ranked No. 2 in the world by WBO, improves to 18-3-4, 9 KOs while Jundaeng, who fought more than 100 times in muay thai, dropped to 7-4-1, 2 KOs.
