In the space of 24 hours earlier this week, Roberto
’The Spider'
Vásquez lost seven pounds and his
trainer. But it wasn't enough: fined $3,000 for coming in at 118
rather than 115, Vásquez was booed all the way to his third round
TKO of the overmatched César Singo and thence to the dressing room.
"Why not go join the heavyweights, fat boy?" yelled one spectator.
The only kind of spider people are willing to accept, it seems, is
an itsy-bitsy one. (No
wonder so many are anorexic!)
Rather more to everyone's liking were the lines of Alys 'La China'
Sánchez of Venezuela, who was making her debut. "Like a princess in
a fairy tale.." one journalist described her, "... toothsome,
slender, smiling, sweet-tempered and demure... our first childhood
sweetheart... the little friend we´d love to have had at school,
returning suddenly in the guise of super heroine to rout with her
fists the spitfires and viragos that make our lives a misery."
Besides being full of themselves, he added by way of explanation,
most female sporting personalities – with one or two exceptions
(whom he named) – could use a lesson in manners.
(The travails of the sports journalist....)
Not among the named exceptions was Sánchez's opponent on Wednesday
evening, the Panamanian 'tomboy' Kathia Montuto, who earned a
certain notoriety last year by insulting Sánchez's friend and
sparring partner Ogleydis Suárez prior to their fight in terms
considered "unfit fit to print". Last Tuesday, Montuto was booed at
the weigh-in, and it didn't require too much effort to infer that
one of the "spitfires" to whom our put-upon wordsmith may have been
referring was her.
Well Sánchez beat
her. She didn't knock her out, as Panamá América erroneously
reported, and it wasn't the kind of thrashing Suárez gave her, but
at the end of the four rounds all three judges had the Venezuelan
ahead. According to the report provided by the promoters, it was a
fight that excited "almost to the point of delirium" the sell-out
crowd. Montuto, who got the worst of it, was commended for not
quitting, whilst the debutante, Sánchez, "proved she had guts as
well as beauty". Montuto connected several times with hard punches
to the twenty-one-year old's body – not to mention her "pretty face"
– but she never once flinched.
Of the reporters who
covered it, (Ana Cristina Tapia chose not to mention the women at
all in her account of the evening's activities and even expunged
them from the list of results!) all seemed to agree it was a good
fight, and the performance of Sánchez in particular was well
received, though Rodolfo J. Newland of El Siglo, basing his
judgement presumably upon her superior morphology (as he can never
have seen her fight), found the victory of the Venezuelan
'predictable'.
That of her fellow
countrywoman Ámbar Fajardo over Mónica Acosta was equally
predictable in his view, along with the totality of the men's
fights, three quarters of which ended inside the distance (though
only one inside the 8 minutes allotted to Sánchez and Montuto).
Undefeated now after seven outings, Fajardo managed to improve on
the split decision in her favour last time the two met but failed to
impose her will on the game Colombian.
Weigh-in photos
and profile
Todo-X-ports: Ay Dios
Mío!!!...Nos Flechó "La China"!!!
Fight
photos
Sánchez v Montuto I
(scroll down)
Sánchez v Montuto 2
(scroll down)
Noche de los super héroes
Ogleydis Suárez TKO 3
Kathia Montuto (2007-03-27)
Reports
De alarido resultó Noche
De Super Heroes
12 Rounds Reflexiones de
una noche de pugilismo
Una cartelera sin ton ni
son
¡La Araña Vásquez
resolvió a Singo en Panamá!
Premiado con abucheos la
"Araña" Vásquez
Resultados, boxeo en
Panamá
Date: 2008-05-07
Venue: Centro de
Convenciones ATLAPA, Panama
Bill:
Noche de Super Héroes
Promoter:
Promociones y Eventos del Istmo
6 x 2 minutes at
featherweight:
Ámbar
Fajardo
(Venezuela) UD Mónica Acosta (Colombia)
(59-54; 59-55;
60-54)4 x 2 minutes at bantamweight:
Alys ´La
China´Sánchez
(Venezuela) UD Kathia Montuto (Panama)
(39-37; 39-38; 40-36)