Christian Araneta falls short in IBF bid despite scoring a knockdown

By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña

 

Cebu’s young boxing star failed to get past his opponent in the International Boxing Federation (IBF) light flyweight title eliminator and will have to wait for his turn in challenging the current champion.

Despite scoring a crucial knockdown in the last round, Christian Araneta still lost via unanimous decision against Sivenathi Nontshinga of South Africa.

The shocking defeat left Araneta’s trainer Jinggoy Junco stunned after expecting a different result to be announced by the ring announcer.

Nontshinga edged the Filipino boxer in all of the scorecards, 114-113, 114-113, and 115-112 to keep his record untainted in 10 fights.

Araneta stuck to his gameplan of staying aggressive through the whole 12 rounds but the South African chose to wait for openings and picked his spots on where to force issues.

However, in the last round of the bout, Araneta stepped on the gas and tried to find that huge punch to put Nontshinga down which he successfully did but the South African was lucky enough to survive the round and win the match.

With the loss, Araneta dropped to 19-2 with 15 wins coming from knockout. Araneta assured fans that he will never lose hope of chasing that IBF light flyweight supremacy bid.