sports

A thrilling victory and a sad draw in two WBA title bouts

by Eric Jackson, partly from other media

On a weekend that had Panamanians fighting for WBA world championships on two continents the national boxing scene held onto a title it holds and fell just short in a second draw in a bantamweight tie.

On March 16 in Hollywood, Florida, Colon's Celestino "Pelenchin" Caballero made his first defense of the WBA super-bantamweight title he won from Somsak Sithchatchawal in Thailand last October, against Mexico's Ricardo ''Piolo'' Castillo.

It started out with a cautious first round, then some rounds in which Castillo was the aggressor, with mixed results. In the third, however, the Mexican lost a point for low blows and after Castillo's bust of energy in the fourth Caballero took command in the fifth round for good, wearing the challenger down with heavy blows to the head and body.

In the ninth Caballero staggered Castillo, knocking out his mouthpiece and apparently his coordination as well. Castillo's brother and manager, José Luis, threw in the towel at that point.

The next night in Stuttgart, Germany, Ricardo "El Maestrito" Córdoba got his rematch with the Ukraine's Vladimir Sidorenko, whom he fought to a draw in a WBA bantamweight title fight last year.

It was a hard fought battle all the way, a draw if one cared to count the blows landed but toward the end of the bout Córdoba seemed worn out and Sidorenko was landing the harder blows. Two judges saw it as a 114-all tie, while the third gave Sidorenko a 117-111 advantage. According to WBA rules that added up to yet another draw, with Sidorenko retaining his championship.

Afterwards Córdoba didn't want to talk about his boxing future or anything else.

The talk among boxing writers, however, is about El Maestrito moving up a category, to the super-bantam ranks. That, of course, would put him on a course toward a confrontation with another outstanding Panamanian pugilist, Celestino Caballero.

Also in this section:
Panama's college football season is underway
Panama retains one boxing championship, misses out on another in a draw
The fish they caught in Gatun Lake one day