MARVIN SONSONA W12 JOSE LOPEZ

He looks like a schoolboy, but Filipino teenager Marvin Sonsona can fight with maturity, as he demonstrated with his thrilling, unanimous decision victory over the vastly more experienced Jose Lopez to win the WBO junior bantamweight title in Ontario, Canada over the weekend.

This fight was one of the most compelling and dramatic that I have seen this year. Sonsona, only 19, lived up to and probably surpassed expectations.

We knew that Sonsona was talented and that he could really punch.

What we could not know was how well he would stand up to the rigours of a long, hard fight against a durable veteran who had not lost in eight years.

Sonsona came through in great style. He showed his punching power early, dropping Lopez heavily in the fourth round, weathered some anxious moments in the middle rounds and showed astonishing savvy and stamina for a boxer with just 13 previous fights, and who had never been past five rounds before, when he outboxed a desperate but dangerous champion in the last two rounds.

It was the later rounds that were expected to be the most difficult for Sonsona, but he boxed beautifully in the 11th and 12th, causing Canada’s TSN analyst Russ Anber to exclaim admiringly: “The rounds he should have lost — he won!”

With no live coverage available to me, I stayed away from the internet for a day so that I would be able to watch the fight with result unknown, and I was glad that I did, because this was one of those bouts that kept the viewer in suspense right up to the final bell. Promoter Allan Tremblay told me in a phone conversation on Sunday that he had been dying a thousand deaths at ringside when Lopez made his fierce rallies. “It took two years off my life,” Tremblay joked.

Sonsona is promoted by Canada’s Tremblay in conjunction with the veteran agent Sampson Lewkowicz and Florida’s Warriors Boxing, and they have a winner in this talented, hard hitting and exciting young fighter.

I thought that Lopez was a clear favourite and the Sonsona team admitted they had taken some criticism for making the match this early in the young man’s career. Sampson Lewkowicz joked in a phone conversation before the Friday-night fight that on Saturday morning he would look like a genius or “the most stupid man in the world”. I guess he looks like a genius.

Sonsona handled adversity in an impressive manner — he was ready for this demanding fight.

It all started wonderfully well for Sonsona. The big left-hand blasts from his southpaw style were hurting the sturdy veteran, and in the fourth it looked as if the Filipino fighter was poised for a sensational win when a big left hand high up on the head sent Lopez sprawling on the bottom rope. Lopez’s legs were disobedient when he got up and he needed all his heart and great boxing knowledge to survive the remainder of the round as Sonsona chased but couldn’t land another blockbuster, and by the end of the round the older man was coming back.

Once Lopez had survived the fourth round he seemed able to take Sonsona’s punches better, although the left hands were steadying him. Lopez was doing some hard punching of his own, though, especially with the right hand although he also ripped some left hooks into Sonsona’s body, and now the young Filipino was in by far the toughest, most punishing fight of his young career.

Sonsona suffered a cut over the right eye and he had to withstand some solid right-hand shots. There were a number of low blows from Lopez, with referee Rocky Zolnierczyk deducting two points from the Puerto Rican champion in the eighth round for what he clearly considered were becoming blatant infringements.

Lopez, 37, was determined to hang on to the title in his first defence, and he was throwing everything he had at an opponent 18 years his junior to try to break the challenger’s will. At one point Lopez’s head banged into Sonsona’s face and this might have caused the cut over the Filipino’s right eye.

Sonsona stood up to it all, though. In the ninth round a right hand moved him back, but, as Russ Anber noted, Sonsona took the punch well — now we know he has a good chin.

I thought that Lopez was coming on strongly in the ninth and 10th, with Sonsona looking tired. Sonsona had most likely been pacing himself, though, because he came out to dominate the last two rounds, moving, jabbing, countering and proving so elusive that he had the champion missing wildly and going in the wrong direction.

One never knows how the judges are seeing a fight, but having suffered a knockdown and with two points deducted, Lopez knew he was almost certainly in trouble on the scorecards and he fought like a man who knows he needs a knockout to win — but Sonsona was like a thoroughbred streaking for the finishing post. The judges agreed that Sonsona had won, with scores of 114-111, 115-110 and 116-109, and Lopez accepted defeat gracefully.

Sonsona’s people believe that they might well have got hold of the new Manny Pacquiao. It’s early days to be making such comparisons, but Sonsona definitely looks something special.

In another fight I thoroughly enjoyed over the weekend, John Simpson again proved too strong for Paul Truscott, wearing down and overpowering a very game opponent to win in the 10th round in defence of his Commonwealth featherweight title.

Truscott, fighting in front of his home crowd at Middlesbrough, in northeast England, was cut over both eyes in the first three rounds and from then on it was always going to be an uphill struggle for “Trussy”, with blood flowing and the mental pressure of knowing that he had lost due to a cut in eight rounds when he fought Simpson in January.

It is to Truscott’s immense credit that he made such a determined stand. He fought bravely and well, and there was a period when I thought he was hurting Simpson to the body, but the Scottish fighter came back and his right hands and body punches were slowly breaking down Truscott, who had blood streaming from his nose in the later rounds.

A knockdown late in the ninth round must have been very discouraging for Truscott, when a right hand had him sagging and a glove seemed to brush the canvas. At this point, Truscott had really given all he had. His corner wanted to pull him out at the end of the round, but Truscott, tired and bloody, wouldn’t hear of it and went out for one last try in the 10th. He was just too weary to hold off Simpson, though, and with Truscott taking punishment on the ropes the referee, Victor Loughlin, made a well-timed intervention after one minute, 34 seconds of the round.

Truscott fought probably better than he has ever fought but, unfortunately for him, so did Simpson in a fight that was a throwback to classic British title bouts of years gone by.