Champ too strong for veteran Xiong
It’s difficult for a fighter to feel right after he’s eaten a steady diet of lefts.
That was pretty much the case for Xiong Chaozhong on Friday night in Qingdao, where he dropped a unanimous decision to WBA minimumweight (105 lbs) champ Thammanoon Niyomtrong of Thailand.
After 12 rounds of decidedly lopsided action, two of the ringside judges scored it 118110, while the third had it 116112. China Daily’s scorecard favored the champion by 117112.
For Xiong, the 35-year-old former coal miner from Kunming who in 2013 became China’s first pro world champion by capturing the WBC strawweight belt, the result suggests he should probably be thinking of retirement.
The 27-year-old Niyomtrong was bigger, stronger and faster from the opening bell — albeit more cautious than he needed to be over the first couple of rounds.
Xiong, confidently stepping in and out of the pocket to potshot behind his jab, pressed the action early on, but the champion’s right-hand counters and straight lefts gradually created distance.
Beginning in round 3, Niyomtrong controlled the pace as they fell into a rhythm of the champion throwing — and landing — jabs and straight lefts while Xiong attempted to counter inside.
Niyomtrong steadily ramped up his attack through the middle rounds, using his quick feet to cut off the ring in order to land four- and fivepunch combinations to the body, capped by straight lefts to the head.
Xiong had no answer, but gallantly kept trying to move forward. In the seventh and ninth rounds he beat Niyomtrong to the punch with counter rights that stopped the champ in his tracks, but by round 10 the challenger had nothing left in the tank.
Xiong was shaken by a hook to the temple early in the 11th and desperately fell into a long clinch, and his clutching and grabbing carried through the final round.
Niyomtrong, looking fresh and unmarked when it was over, graciously saluted Xiong’s gutsy effort at the postfight media conference and said he would welcome a rematch.
“Xiong is a very tough, very experienced boxer and I hope we can fight again in the future,” said the champion, who improved to 18-0 with his sixth title defense.
Xiong, now 27-8-1, said he had no regrets about taking the fight.
“I tried my best, and although I did not win I am happy that I took up this challenge,” he said.
“Niyomtrong’s strength, speed and tactics were perfect, and it was very hard to keep up with him in the second half of the fight.”
PUNCH LINES: In the co-main event on the sixbout card at Qingdao’s Guoxin Gymnasium, Japan’s Sho Kimura defended his WBO world flyweight crown with a sixth-round KO of Froilan Saludar of the Philippines ... On the undercard, Xu Can, a 5-foot-10 featherweight from Kunming, improved to 14-2 with a seventh-round KO of Filipino Jelbert Gomera, while Li Xiang, a light flyweight from Guiyang, Guizhou province, was handed his first setback in six pro outings, dropping a sixround unanimous decision to Filipino Miel Fajardo.