By Jason Kim: Pongsaklek Wonjongkam (72-3-1, 38 KOs) defeated Mexican Julio Cesar Miranda (29-4-1, 22 KOs) by a 12-round unanimous decision to win the interim World Boxing Council flyweight title on Friday night in Chachoengsao, Thailand. The final judges’ scores were 117-111, 119-110 and 118-109. Wonjongkam, 31, isn’t a stranger to the WBC flyweight title, having held it for six long years from 2001 to 2007 until losing it to Daisuke Naito by a close 12-round unanimous decision loss in July 2007.
Wonjongkam attempted to recapture it against Naito in a rematch, but was held to a 12-round draw against the Japanese fighter in March 2008.
However, on Friday night Wonjongkam was not to be denied in his efforts to recapture the WBC title, as he fought superbly throughout the 12-round bout, countering Miranda often with hooks to the body and pin point left hands to the head.
Wonjongkam faded a bit after the 5th round, and threw far fewer punches and let Miranda into the fight. Miranda did the better work in rounds six through eight. Wonjongkam came back strong in the 9th, and landed a high percentage of power shots against the constantly coming forward Miranda. In rounds 10 and 11, Wonjongkam continued to fight well, hitting Miranda cleanly with nice straight lefts to the head and making him pay each time he would attempt to land a shot.
Even when Miranda would land, Wonjongkam expertly made him pay for it by hitting him with short punches as he was rewinding his right or left hands. In the 12th, Miranda fought hard and landed some nice power shots to finish strong. However, by then Miranda needed more than to just win the round. He needed to score a knockout and unfortunately, he couldn’t land anything big enough to put Wonjongkam down.
Wonjongkam, a southpaw, fought well in the first two rounds, landing crisp 1-2 combinations to the head of Miranda. Wonjongkam moved constantly and made it hard for Miranda to get his shots off. Miranda wanted badly to turn the fight into a war, but Wonjongkam wasn’t making it easy for him by staying on the move and not presenting a stationary target for Miranda to get his big shots off against.
In rounds three and four, Wonjongkam went head hunting, fusing all his power punches to the head and ignoring Miranda’s body entirely. In the 4th round, there was a clash of heads in the opening seconds of the round and both Miranda and Wonjongkam ended up with nearly identical cuts on the left sides of their eyes. The cuts weren’t a factor, though, as the blood was running down the sides of their faces rather than into their eyes.
Miranda started fighting better in the 5th round, and was finding it much easier to land his shots against Wonjongkam, who was moving much less than he had in the prior rounds. However, Miranda still didn’t do quite enough to win the round. This would change in round six through eight, as Miranda began putting a lot of pressure on the older Wonjongkam. Miranda switched from orthodox to southpaw frequently and seemed to be giving Wonjongkam problems with the constant changes of style.
In rounds nine through eleven, Wonjongkam seemed to have figured Miranda out and started throwing a lot of fast shots to pick Miranda off as he came forward. Miranda would continue to pressure Wonjongkam, but he was much less effective now.