TalkingBoxing Article

May 5, 2004
Puerto Rican Pride; Siaca Upsets Mundine

by Neil Kapoor
     Sydney Australia, 5th May 2004 - Anthony Mundine Of Australia last night was unsuccessful of making his second title defence of his WBA Super-Middleweight title against the hard hitting Manny Siaca of Puerto Rico.

Round One was the typical 'Feeling out Process' type round, which was pretty even at 10-10.

Round two was fast and frantic with Mundine, 20-2, regularly sticking and moving with his fast jab, Siaca, 18-4, meanwhile very calm in round two trying to find an opening, which he did. The Puerto Rican fighter threw a powerful uppercut and vicious left hook towards the end of the round which backed Mundine to the ropes and floored the Australian in front of his home crowd.

All judges scored the fight 10-8 Siaca. Mundine came out very cautious in round 3, regularly dancing and trying to avoid the punches of Siaca, who had put pressure on the champion since the opening bell. In round six, Mundine fell to the canvas but looked like he was tagged with a very light right hook from Siaca.

As the fight continued, in round eight, Mundine scored a very impressive and fast combination; the ringside judges scored this round for Mundine 10-9.

Round 11 and 12 were Championship rounds. Siaca was more aggressive and much more hungrier for a victory, as he was trying to pressure Mundine to make a mistake. The Australian was very cautious and used the ring well avoiding most of the punches Siaca dished out. By the time the final bell rang, both fighters shook hands and showed each other respect they both deserved for putting on a good show.

At the end of the fight, two local fight officials from Blacktown, NSW, Australia, Bergin Hussein and Nirmal Kapoor had the fight scored 115-113 in favour of Siaca. Australian commentators had the fight scored 114-114 even.

The official scoring was as follows: Japanese judge Takeshi Shimikawa scored the fight 114-113 in Mundine's favour, Sweden's Mikael Hook and Korea's Wangsup Shim both had the challenger winning 115-113.

Manny Siaca is reportedly the 23rd world champion trained by Manny Siaca Sr., the father of the newly crowned champion. "This is an honour to me because he (my father) has trained a lot of world champions, and now he has me, his son, champion of the world," Said Siaca. Siaca is also Puerto Rico's first ever Super-Middleweight champion of the world.

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