How does a rejuvinated Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym fare against the top super-bantams?

Evening rasta's,

Just thought, if anyone could give a ****, I'd move away from yesterday's/this morning's events to talk about this little Thai bruiser who's looking to make his way back to the top of the super-bantamweight division. For most of you that know him, it's probably as a result of him pasting Ireland's own Bernard Dunne in three rounds back in 2009, before the shock loss to Japan's unheralded Ryol Li Lee. I myself have been following him since 2005, when the 12/13 year old version of myself watched him fight a man who was, and still is, one of my favourite fighters around, Ricardo ''El Maestrito'' Cordoba at 118lbs. Despite him getting a split-decision win I felt(and still do feel, granted it was very close) was undeserved, I certainly came away with having another fighter to add to my growing list of one's to follow.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nQA2olSL7w&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL[/ame]

Anyway, that win gave him a slice of the WBA title, the interim one to be precise, and after one defence of that he received a shot at the ''full'' title against Volodymyr Sydorenko. What's been obvious in watching Poonsawat since, is that he hadn't yet reached his peak at the time of the Cordoba and Sydorenko bouts. Against Sydorenko, he looked very green, quite ragged. Nonetheless it was a close fight, despite one judge ridiculously scoring it a whitewash for the Ukrainian, and one I thought was a draw.

(An underrated fight this. I'd advise you lads to give both this and the Cordoba one a watch. JunglesOfThailand on YT has both)

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76BSX0lhzwg&feature=related[/ame]

It's damn near impossible to find the series of fights he had which followed this as he faded into general obscurity in Thailand, facing poor opposition on a fight-by-fight basis. Then out of nowhere came a long overdue chance to propel himself back into the title picture, this time against Somsak Sithchatchawal in a eliminator at 122, who, despite his deceiving 56-2-1 record, was still very formidable opposition. Particularly for a fighter who hadn't fought decent opposition for nearly two years at the weight below. As is the norm for Poon, an entertaining fight followed though on this occasion a dominating one at the same time. He beat his southpaw foe with a previously underused right hand for eleven rounds before a crippling left hook to the body sealed the deal. His improvement was both immense and obvious, much more methodical, and a significantly improved defense, Somsak could barely land a glove on him as Poon showed the ability to step in and out and fire back with counter-punches, something that was never associated with him before.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GLs-GVCpWA&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL[/ame]

A frustrating year ensued, a shot at a title that he assumed was eminent wasn't forthcoming, and he went back to fighting no-hopers until he absolutely pounded Rafael Hernandez for the interim WBA belt. He got his shot then at the aforementioned Dunne, who was favoured by many after his triumph over Cordoba to come out on top in a close battle of attrition with Poon. And it appeared to be heading in that direction for two and a half rounds. Dunne made him look like the Poon of old, chasing him down, hitting nothing but air. But constant relentless pressuring forced Bernard into a fight, Poonsawat's fight, and when he began to exchange the end was nigh. A debilitating left hook did the damage, Dunne didn't recover and was subsequently dropped two more times and forced into retirement.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXgwny6_Ous&feature=related[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO8jyjfquAs[/ame]

Now champ(I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, Caballero was ''Super'' champ, but what can ya do:conf), I expected him to embark on a successful reign. His first defence was far from a let-down, having a fookin excellent fight of the year contender with undefeated Satoshi Hosono in his opponent's Tokyo backyard. Just a bloddy quality fight with Hosono throwing combo's in 5's and 6's trying to catch the eyes of the judges, Poonsawat unleashing big 2's and 3's with abundantly more power. Hosono was more willing to throw with Poon than vice versa, but the more venomous punches told, and the champ came away with a deserved(IMO) MD win.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toOfPE4fSPQ&feature=related[/ame]

He followed that up with a KO win over the decnt Shoji Kimura in four rounds. Kimura had a lot of heart, but it was evident that he was a level or two below Poonsawat, who took his time, worked off the jab, blocked the majority of Shoji's big uppercuts, and dished out a sustained beating in the fourth, dropping his gutsy challenger twice. (The finishing uppercut is a beaut)

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEwh_5T54Sc[/ame]

Now my brethren, I'm no whinger or nothing, and I'm not making excuses, just throwing it out there, that for his fight against Lee, in Japan, on their arrival they found that the Japanese team didn't arrange any transportation for them poorly and arranged the accommodation, which was supposed to be 8 rooms but only 4 were provided. Add to that also the foreign referee's visa being declined which resulted in a Japanese referee being used and, you know, just sayin'.

Anyways, in a close fight that could've gone either way(draw for me) we had Lee employ what Dunne tried to do successfully and out-manouver Poonsawat for the most part and landing a shot here and there, with Poon being the aggressor and trying to cut the ring off, while landing the more telling blows for the most part. For two judges, Lee just about shaded it with close but acceptable scorecards, with some wanker called Derek Milham scoring it 118-110 to Lee.:twisted:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62UQcSlBboU[/ame]

Since that fateful night where he lost his belt, the man previously known as Prakorb Udomna has rebounded with three victories, with his most recent being last month with a TD win over a faded Eric Barcelona. Confidence restored, hunger back, Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym is ready to make another assault on the pinnacle of the super-bantamweight division. With two of the four belt holders being Japanese(Nishioka and Shimoda) his is very much still a viable option for any champion wanting to build a legacy. Challenges to Takalani Ndlovu and Jorge Arce are extremely unlikely, but just for the sake of it, what would you gays make of his chances against them as well as the other two?

Easy, tigers.

 

:yep

I have it nailed to a tee.

Poon-sa-wat Kra-ting-day-eng-gym.

 

Nice one guys. I'm on an iPod now so can't really make any long-ish posts. I'll do some proper responses tomorrow.

 

Yeah, I include Ndlovu simply because he holds a belt, nothing more, nothing less. I think he's somewhat underrated, he only ever gets beaten in very close fights(razor thin in some cases) and has a couple of decent-although no top-level- wins. He's probably fringe world-class, I remember after Rigo demolished Casey I said that Ndlovu would be a very beneficial bout for him, he's a decent fighter, and would make things somewhat difficult, but would ultimitely be outclassed. It'd give Rigo some added pro experience and a ''world'' title to boot. I reckon Poon would batter him late on after some early difficulty with Takalani's 4 inch(something around that anyways) height advantage. A TKO is very much a possibility, if Molitor can I don't see why the Red Bull couldn't.

Shimoda's pretty good, though nothing spectacular. I genuinely believe Poonsawat had an off-night against Lee and would've beaten him conclusively had they fought again. Shimoda's got a cultured jab, which he continuously pops out at you while slowly advancing, and an accurate straight left when he gets into a rhytem. He puts his shots together well and has a humungous head, which he puts to good(albeit illegal) use. His head movement is good for not letting an opponent set but it's poor in terms of enabling him to defend himself. In essence, his defence is pretty bad, and, being a southpaw, he's more vulnerable to Poon's money shots, the left hook and the right hand. He's hasn't got enough power to go toe-to-toe, and he's not quick enough of hand or foot to keep Poonsawat off of him. I'd take Kratingdaenggym by very wide decision. EDIT: Of course, it's not a guarantee that he'll be successful about Rico Ramos either when he makes his first defence.

Arce, I'm not all that sure about. I'll give him all the credit he deserves for beating Wilfredo(leaving me distraught in the process, as you might guess:-(), I thought he was truely shot in the build up to that, turns out he's just quite a bit past his best. He'll still get beaten by decent movers though, he looked absolutely shocking against Nongqayi and Parra(where he was blessed to come away with a draw). WV2 fought pretty much the only fight where Arce can come out on top against high-class operators now, by making it an all-out war, which was idiotic. Poon just has to fight the way he did against Somsak, a little more refined aggression, let the other guy lunge forward, Poon steps back and counters. Poonsawat's a better boxer then most give him credit for, he just doesn't do it enough. He can fight off the jab and throw when the chance presents itself and get out of the way, the only fear would be that he'd allow Jorge to drag him into a brawl as he loves a tear-up. A bit of intelligence, Poon wins, in a full war of attrition, it's toss-up.

Nishioka ain't all he's cracked up to be if you ask me. I made a post before about the Gonzalez fight that I thought highlighted a couple of weaknesses:

Now, that's not to say that I think he'd beat Tosh, just that he isn't the kind of irrisistible force he's cracked up to be. Of course, he's still very much an excellent fighter, and is rightly at the summit of the division. But he has been hurt before, and does leave himself open to those punches that Poon backs quite a lot of power behind, which would make things interesting. He'd more than likely have the accuracy to pull it out though. He'd have one or two moments where he could find himself in trouble, but I'd say Nishioka wins in a 116-112, 115-113 sort of fight.

I'm reserving judgement on Cordoba for the moment, want to see how he looks when he comes back. Now doubt though, I'll as usual with Maestrito pick him to win and he'll let me down by not fighting to his potential as he's done on a few occasions already.:yep

Rigo, meh. Too much in every department, all wrong style-wise, it'd be a foregone conclusion. Only the method of victory for him would be debatable in my opinion. The only fight in the division I'd stay well away from if I were Poon.

Yep.:good

I scored similarly, though I may have given a round more to Cordoba if memory serves me. I thought he really, really deserved the decision, the only problem for him was going to wild when he felt he had his man in danger. He had Poonsawat back-tracking a lot towards the tail-end of the fight, but got over-excited when he did and lost composure. If he stuck to throwing the jab, the composed left and that rapid right hook(the kind of one he used to floor Dunne) he would've walked it. As it stands, he lost his head a bit and despite doing enough to win the fight left too much room for doubt.

(Also, with the scorecards:

Takeshi Shimakawa 116-113 | judge: Luis Rivera 111-118 | judge: Derek Milham 116-114

Suspicious much? Two judges give it to the home-town fighter by maybe a point or two more than they should have[though they aren't completely unreasonable], and the other gives it to the fighter from Panama, incidentally whete the WBA is based, by seven points.)

 

I can live with that. If he fights somewhat intelligently he'd batter Arce, but I can't see him dominating to the same extent if he played into his hands.
Which I pretty much said already, I just want this thread bumped.:yep