JAKARTA - Rogen Ladon will be fighting for the gold, while Carlo Paalam and Eumir Marcial have to settle for a bronze.
The 2016 Rio Olympian scored an impressive unanimous decision victory over Yuttapong Tongdee of Thailand with a masterful performance in their flyweight semifinal at Hall C of the Jakarta International Expo. Now the first boxer to score a win for the Philippines in the 2018 Asian Games is also the first to make it to the final match.
The flyweight Ladon was caught a few times by his power-punching foe in the first round but he quickly adjusted after Round 1. Instead of staying in the pocket and exchanging heavy punches with the Thai boxer, Ladon moved around and landed clean punches. His lead left was effective in halting the attacks of Tongdee but the Filipino also put his punches together whenever he had the opportunity.
Frustrated that he could not connect with his power punches, Tongdee resorted to dirty tactics in the third round in an effort to turn the fight around. The Thai took down Ladon and even punched him while he was down but the referee let him off without a point deduction.
Undeterred, Ladon just went back to what won him the second round. He threw one-twos, right hook counters, and lead lefts to win the third and punch his ticket to a gold-medal opportunity.
Three judges scored the fight a shutout at 30-27 while the other two had it 29-28.
Ladon will face Uzbekistan's Jasurbek Latipov for the gold tomorrow.
In the second fight of the evening session, light flyweight Carlo Paalam settled for a bronze medal as he lost a painfully close split decision to Amit of India. Paalam, the stylist, had to attack as the Indian was moving around the ring. This enabled Amit to land left straights.
Paalam also had his moments in the fight as he landed a huge 1-2 that momentarily staggered Amit but in the end the judges scored it for the blue corner.
The scores were 30-27 and 29-28 twice for Amit and 29-28 twice for Paalam.
Eumir Marcial, the power-punching Filipino middleweight, also failed to advance as he lost a narrow decision to Ismail Madrimov of Uzbekistan.
Even if Marcial dominated the third round and staggered Madrimov multiple times, the judges only deemed it as a 10-9 round which allowed the Uzbek to steal a razor thin decision.
Three judges scored it for Madrimov 28-27 while the other two gave the nod to Marcial via the same count.
"I thought Marcial and Paalam both won their matches," said a dejected ABAP President Ricky Vargas. "But that's boxing for you. It's so subjective. Even if all of the people watching thought our boxers won, the judges still gave it to the other side."