By Dan Ambrose: WBC super flyweight champion Srisaket Sor Rungvisai (47-4-1, 41 KOs) punished his tough challenger #12 WBC Iran Diaz (14-3-3, 6 KOs) in defeating him by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the Impact Arena in Pak Kret, Thailand.
(Photo credit: ONE Championship)
Rungvisai attacked Diaz at will with powerful body shots the entire fight, landing the punches with huge power. It was a moral victory for the Mexican Diaz that he was able to go the full 12 round distance, as he looked hurt at times, especially in the 11th round when he was nailed by a hard head shot from Rungvisai. What might have helped Diaz go the distance was the way that the 31-year-old Rungvisai would telegraph his punches.
Diaz always knew what was coming, but he still couldn’t stop the shots or get out of the way of them. The only thing Diaz could do was brace for their impact. You don’t win rounds by staying on your feet and absorbing punishment the way Diaz was. Diaz took a lot of body shots that would have worn down most fighters, but he was able to handle them without any problems. Diaz was still bouncing around in the championship rounds, showing lots of energy to keep fighting Rungvisai hard. But it was a case of one fighter competing with a cap gun against another fighter with bazooka. Rungvisai showed freakish punching power tonight, and Diaz was no match for him. For Rungvisai to find someone with his kind of punching power, he’ll need to move up to bantamweight to take on Naoya or Zolani Tete.
The judges scored the fight for Rungvisai by the following scores of 120-108, 119-109 and 119-109. Boxing News 24 had Rungvisai winning all 12 rounds in winning by the score 120-108. After the scores were announced, Diaz looked upset, as if he thought he had won the fight. Diaz had to have been out of touch with how one-sided the fight was for him to think he deserved the win.
There were a couple of instances in the fight where Rungvisai slipped and fell down after throwing a big shot that had him off balance. In both cases, Diaz hit Rungvisai after he slipped and was on his way down. The referee Jay Nady chose not to call them knockdowns, but some fans might say that you could give Diaz credit for having dropped Rungvisai. It wouldn’t have mattered though. Rungvisai dominated the entire fight regardless of whether the referee had given Diaz credit for the knockdowns. It was a one-sided due to the huge punching power advantage that Rungvisai had. Diaz’s shots didn’t have anywhere near the same kind of punching power.
Rungvisai will be making a voluntary defense in his next fight. The World Boxing Council decided at their 56 annual convention last week that Rungvisai can take a voluntary defense next, and after that, he must face Juan Francisco Estrada, who he recently beat by a 12 round majority decision last February. The Rungvisai-Estrada fight was a lot like tonight’s Rungvisai vs. Diaz contest. Rungvisai battered Estrada with body shots the entire fight, making move around to try and escape the hard shots. The only thing that was different about that fight was the crowd was pro-Estrada, and they were cheering him the entire contest. The cheering likely influenced the judges to give Estrada more rounds than he deserved in that fight, as the only ones that he appeared to win was round 2 and 12. The other 10 rounds were dominated by Rungvisai with his body shots. The judges might not have been scoring the body shots.
Rungvisai probably would have knocked Diaz out if he’d thrown more combinations. Most of Rungvisai’s punches were single shots where he would load up on them. The power on those shots would have knocked Diaz out if he’d put his punches together instead of loading up and telegraphing them so often.