With the great condition of the invader spicing it with courage and vaunted rugged style, the Panamanian El Torito delivered the death blow on the 10^th round to the holy young man of Philippine boxing touted as the next Manny Pacquiao.

What I see of the fight is that the 19-year old boxer from Corella, Bohol didn’t fight on his own fight. Instead, he came in on Rafael Concepcion’s fight and abandoned his corner’s fight plan. He hardly unloaded his jab to halt the raging Torito on the attack, lost his composure and focus of his fight. Though, I must understand that the dirty tactics of Concepcion bothered him a lot. The couple of low blows and repeated hard punch to the left side of his oxygen tank everytime the two protagonist hold closed each other, sapped his precious energy, diminished his firepower and blown out much of his oxygen.

When he was downed in the 10^th round and woobling his head while the referee is counting, I sensed the end of the fight. Even if he has the will to fight, his body was grimacing in pain and his oxygen tank near empty. I felt he could no longer continue the fight and possibly win it.

AJ Banal’s (17-1-1) lost to the 26-year old Panamanian conqueror (11-2-1) is hard to accept but it’s not the end of his promising boxing career. He has nothing to be ashamed of. His countrymen rooting for his boxing success are very proud of his courage and fair play. He’s still very young. Using the lessons learned from his first defeat, certainly he will bounce back and regain his lost glory. And become a world champion.