Steven Luevano, Nonito Donaire, Rafael Concepcion, and Bernabe Concepcion

I tuned in to Pinoy Power 2, and the first bout I watched was a terribly familiar sight. It was a fight I’d seen a thousand times before: the Filipino challenger, all heart and no head, stalking the wily foreign champion, who keeps his distance and tags his opponents with timely hits. It’s every other boxing fight by every other Filipino boxer, and watching it gave me no reason to think that the result would be any different. In this case, it was Filipino boxer Bernabe Concepcion against Mexican champion Steven Luevano.

Then an odd thing happened at the end of the seventh round. The bell rang, but instead of turning back and heading to his corner, Concepcion launched another haymaker that hit Luevano straight in the jaw, knocking the champion down. The referee promptly disqualified Concepcion, who would later claim that he did not hear the bell ringing, as Concepcion’s trainer Freddie Roach protested.



Our guy still lost, but at least this one was different. I still don’t know if Concepcion is any better than all those other Filipino boxers from yesteryears who had their fifteen minutes of fame in the ring before getting outclassed by true champions, but the handlers of both sides have already indicated a desire to do a rematch. We’ll find out soon enough.

With that, I thoroughly enjoyed Nonito Donaire’s title defense match against Panamanian challenger Rafael 'El Torito' Concepcion. It wasn’t Donaire’s best performance, and he obviously had his hands full against his opponent who came in to the fight two divisions heavier, but Donaire showed flashes of why this brutal sport is called the sweet science.

And it’s also refreshing, with Donaire’s unanimous victory, to see a Filipino fighter for once not playing the bull, but the matador – and, as these things usually go, the winner.