Never Underestimate Your Opponent

Yesterday, I watched this fight between John Riel “Cuadro Alas” (4 Aces) Casimero, and Yukinori Oguni. For those who are not familiar with this controversial Filipino boxer, he is now the current holder of the WBO Global Super Bantamweight title.

Prior to his fight with Yukinori Oguni, Casimero was coming from a record of nine straight wins since July 2018. Most notable among his fights include Zolani Tete, Duke Micah, and Guillermo Rigondeaux. His fights with Tete and Micah were impressive. As for his fight with Rigondeaux, I was disappointed for the latter kept running around the ring. His last three performances were not as impressive as the earlier fights. It appears that he was trying too hard that the bouts ended up awkward and ugly.

As for his latest fight with Oguni, many were disappointed with the result including Casimero fans such as Pow Salud of Powcast Sports, a popular Filipino YouTuber. He invited both critics and fans to his channel to express their opinions about the fight. As I listened, most Filipino boxing fans were also disappointed.

One gave his “scientific” interpretation of the fight saying that Casimero did not fully recover from the weigh-in. As a result of the forced reduction in weight, the man has not regained his strength. His footwork was not there, he was beating the air several times, and reaching the third round, it appeared that he was already short of air.

Anyhow, I am not a nutritionist to evaluate such a matter. All I can say depends on what I saw and what I heard after the fight.

In my eyes, Casimero was slow. I now doubt if he can really win over Naoya Inoue, the Japanese monster for the former keeps saying on social media that the latter is afraid of him. Seeing his performance, with Oguni, I am not sure if the Japanese boxing fans will still buy the idea of a future fight between Inoue and Casimero.

For many Filipino boxing viewers, this recent fight reminded them of what happened with Casimero’s fight with Ryo Akaho, another Japanese boxer ten months ago. It seems that the referees have been so protective of Japanese boxers that in both cases the referees decided an early stoppage with a slight injury.

Sadly, during the post-fight, Casimero was interviewed and I didn’t like what I heard. The man is full of himself. He said he could knock down Oguni in the first round but for the sake of entertaining the audience, he decided to extend the fight to a few more rounds. I wonder why he could say that after seeing the decision of the referee that the fight was a draw.

In any sport, no matter how good you are, underestimating your opponent is a big, big no!

Seeing the response of the Casimero camp due to the rising number of bashers, instead of thanking his critics, I only see denial and defensiveness. His brother is even showing off huge files of USD bills sending a clear message that no matter what the critics say, money is on their side. That’s not the kind of response I am expecting from the champion’s camp.