JUAN ALBERTO ROSAS W12 FEDERICO CATUBAY

RINGSIDE REPORT: In a bout that featured almost non-stop punching, Mexico’s Juan Alberto Rosas fought in a steady, disciplined manner to win a unanimous 12-round decision over the wild-swinging, unconventionally styled Federico Catubay in their IBF junior bantamweight title eliminator. This made it two losses in the two main bouts for Filipino boxers on a show that took place the night before the Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto superfight. Earlier, well-regarded Mark Melligen was outfought and outgamed by Mexico's Michel Rosales. Luckily for Pacquiao, this didn't turn out to be a bad omen.

Catubay was in the fight early, winging his punches from all directions, but the Filipino is a slapper and by the middle rounds |Rosas was doing all the clean, effective punching.

It was a hard-fought bout, with heads bumping and low blows on both sides, and I was pleased that referee Russell Mora didn’t start deducting points.

Each man was as much to blame as the other, and the referee let them fight it out without whipping points away. In a physical fight such as this, where would the deductions stop once they had been started?

It was simply a rough, tough fight between rough, tough fighters and the referee seemed to sense this very early.

Catubay did manage to win the last round in the scoring as Rosas seemed to be coasting home, but there was no doubt who had won as Rosas took the decisuon with scores of 116-112, 117-111 and 117-111 again.

The bantamweight 10-rounder between Z Gorres and Luis Melendez was a reminder of the risks inherent in boxing, with the winner, Gorres, rushed to hospital for emergency brain surgery.

Gorres scored a knockdown in the third round and was well in front on points when, with the all-southpaw fight almost over, Melendez finally landed one of his big, winging left hands and the Filipino boxer went down heavily against the ropes. Although Gorres got and held on for the remaining seconds until the bell he could hardly keep his legs under him. Gorres heard himself announced as the winner by unanimous decision and then collapsed. At time of typing he was in an induced coma.

This wasn’t a punishing fight, or an exhausting one. Just one big punch from the Colombian boxer, with the finishing post in sight, and the damage was done.