By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
The Philippine national boxing team opened its 2020 Asia and Oceania Olympic boxing qualifiers with a bang.
Ian Clark Bautista, who faced former AIBA youth world champion Hayato Tsutsumi, showed the entire world the guts and the true definition of a warrior.
The fight went into a close contest and was scored 29-28, 28-29, 30-27, 28-29, 29-28, in the opening match of the featherweight division (57 kg).
The Filipino slugger out-boxed the former champion and had an efficient match by throwing clean jabs and picked his shots wisely as he waited for perfect openings to throw his combinations.
Tsutsumi then retaliated in the next rounds with clean shots to Bautista’s face but the Filipino came back surging with jabs to counter the scores the Japanese garnered.
The much-needed victory became a momentum boosting moment for the PH squad as Bautista already took down one of the main pugs in the qualifiers.
