By Francisco Chantengo: South African Vusi Malinga (18-2-1, 11 KOs) destroyed former two-time bantamweight champion Veeraphol Sahaprom (61-4-2, 43 KOs) in a 4th round TKO of a scheduled 12-round WBC bantamweight eliminator bout on Wednesday night at the Bodindecha School, Bangkluay, in Nonthaburi, Thailand. Malinga, using a non-stop attack consisting mainly of uppercuts and hooks, dropped Sahaprom, 39, at the end of the 3rd round with a flurry of vicious uppercuts, and then finished him off at the start of the 4th round with a storm of punches to the head. Referee Bruce McTavish stepped in and stopped the bout at 0:36 of the 4th round with Sahaprom still on his feet.
In the opening round, Malinga tore into the former champion Sahaprom, who had previously held the WBC bantamweight title for an incredible seven years (from 1998-2005) and had defended the title successfully 14 times until losing it to now champion Hozumi Hasegawa, with nonstop uppercuts to the head. Sahaprom, at one a powerful puncher with a lot speed and a high work rate, was now much slower and less busy against Malinga. This, in effect, let Malinga jump all over Sahaprom from the opening bell, keeping him under a constant shower of punches during the round. Sahaprom, perhaps knowing he had no chance in the center of the ring against the taller Malinga, retreated to the ropes where he attempted to land counter shots to try and slow Malinga’s attacks. However, Sahaprom had little luck in keeping up with the busy Malinga, who buried him with uppercuts, hooks and straight lefts and right hands.
Whatever Malinga threw, they were all getting threw Sahaprom’s guard. Though he bravely attempted to cover up and block Malinga’s constant rain of punches, there were simply way too many punches coming threw and he had no way of stopping them all. Perhaps knowing that it was suicide for him to stay on the ropes for long, Sahaprom tried moving off of them to the center of the ring, but Malinga met him each time with a flurry of uppercuts, working angles to get to the side of Sahaprom, where he was covering up less effectively. It was like watching a swarm of bees attacking a small bear, no matter how hard Sahaprom tried to stop the swarm of punches coming in from Malinga, it was no use – they got threw anyway.
At the start of the 2nd round, Malinga staggered Sahaprom with a series of uppercuts to the head. However, Sahaprom recovered quickly and began to land powerful left and right hands to the body of Malinga, causing the ringside crowd to applaud loudly. I could see why then how Sahaprom had been able to hold onto his bantamweight championship belt for so long, because he punches very hard, especially to the body.
Unfortunately, what he needed most of all against Malinga was a little more speed and a lot more boxing ability, because he was pretty much a stationary target for Malinga, and wasn’t able to stay away from him to avoid his smothering attacks. Sahaprom appeared poised to win the round, when he was staggered again at the end of the round by some big shots to the head.
In the 3rd round, Malinga continued where he left off, tagging Sahaprom with hooks and uppercuts. He seem to realize that the uppercuts were working the best, catching the shorter 5’3″ Sahaprom perfectly each time, and so he continued throwing mostly uppercuts in the round. Sahaprom didn’t have the movement or the reach to counteract Malinga’s uppercuts, and so he was forced to deal with them the best he could (which wasn’t very good at all, as it turns out).
Sahaprom did land some good shots to the body, just like he had in the previous round, but they were no match for the continue punishment he was absorbing. Near the end of the round, Malinga dropped Sahaprom with two big left uppercuts. Sahaprom got up off the canvas, staggering to his feet, and was checked out by the referee who asked him to walk towards him. Sahaprom did so, staggering badly the entire time. Most referees would have probably stopped the fight at this juncture. However, the referee, perhaps not wanting to anger the crowd, merely grabbed both of Sahaprom’s gloves, wiped them off and allowed the fight to continue.
Seconds into the 4th round, Malinga, firing off a horde of uppercuts, staggered Sahaprom once again, sending him to the ropes where he attempted to cover up. Malinga moved in quickly and rained in punches on Sahaprom hitting him repeatedly with fast uppercuts. The referee, watching closely at this point, finally had seen enough and stepped in and halted the fight at 0:36 of the 4th round.