The second major flyweight title changed hands this month, as Daisuke Naito beat Pongsaklek Wonjongkam at Korakuen Hall via unanimous decision. Naito won on scores of 116-113, 115-113 and 116-113.
Naito's win ends the near-eleven year unbeaten streak of Thailand's top fighter, during which he very often fought inferior competition in his homeland. Even most of his defenses of the WBC title were a little suspect at best, which always gave me the impression that it was impossible to really consider Wonjongkam among boxing's best.
The two fought before at the same venue in 2005, with Wonjongkam winning via technical decision after seven rounds, leading 68-64 on all three scorecards. It would be wise to expect a third fight between the two.
On Wednesday Night Fights, unbeaten junior featherweight Mike "The Machine" Oliver improved to 20-0 with a unanimous decision rout of Cruz Carbajal (28-14).
In Australia, light heavyweight knockout artist Danny Green (24-3, 22 KO) topped Otis Griffin (18-2-2) via third round KO.
Right now, it appears as though HBO is leaning toward hiring the Versus Network's Wally Matthews as Max Kellerman's replacement on Boxing After Dark. Kellerman, of course, was promoted to World Championship Boxing, sharing duties with Larry Merchant. Bert Sugar and others also auditioned for the job. I don't think you can ever go wrong with having Bert Sugar talk about boxing, but Matthews is a proven strong color commentator, and would be essentially reforming his old team with Bob Papa. Even though Versus hasn't given us a whole lot in the way of great (or even good) fights in their short history, they have certainly been a breeding ground for outstanding commentary.
Also, it looks like Zab Judah's September 7 opponent could be Jesse Feliciano, a guy who is a lot more dangerous than his 15-5-3 record. His losses have come to Alfonso Gomez (2001), Mohamad Abdulaev (2004), Mike Arnaoutis (2004), Oscar Diaz (2005) and Demetrius Hopkins (2005). But since the loss to Hopkins, he's scored two upset wins over Vince Phillips and Delvin Rodriguez, plus he went to a draw in a very entertaining rematch with Gomez. Zab probably has all the tools to dominate Feliciano, but he beats the hell out of Ruben Galvan. ESPN2 -- an obvious fan of Feliciano's -- is on board with the idea, and will approve the fight, but Zab and his team have yet to agree or disagree.