By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
The blood, sweat, and tears that Johnriel Casimero spent these past months in the US paid-off after knocking out the undefeated Duke Micah in the third-round to retain his WBO bantamweight championship.
Flying to the US even with the uncertainty of his highly-anticipated showdown against Naoya Inoue of Japan, Casimero did not give up and came after top dogs just to make his sacrifices in the US result to something positive for his camp.
The prized Filipino slugger did not slow down despite the seven-month lay-off and came in hot to let Micah know what kind of champion he was.
Casimero opened the second round looking to finish the fight as he unloaded a flurry of punches to hurt his Ghanian challenger.
Sizing up Micah, Casimero found the perfect timing to throw a devastating left hook to register his first knockdown of the match in the second round.
The Filipino champion then started the third round oozing with momentum and confidence to finally control and dominate the match and send Micah down to the canvass after a flurry of body shots and uppercuts.
Micah’s loss to Casimero was his first-ever in his career and vows to learn from the devastating defeat and come back stronger.
“I’m the real monster. Naoya Inoue is scared of me. You’re next. I would have knocked out anyone today. If Inoue doesn’t fight me, then I’ll fight Guillermo Rigondeaux, Luis Nery, or any of the top fighters,” said Casimero.
