It’s The Same Boom Boom Bautista

After taking a humiliating defeat November last year, Rey ‘Boom Boom’ Bautista added another notch to his strings of victories at the expense of Indonesian challenger Marangin Marbun. Bautista blasted Marbun with an overhand right. Referee Bruce McTavish did not even bother to count.

In front of a hometown crowd in Waterfront Hotel in Cebu City, Philippines, Bautista displayed a same version of himself, though he did show some array of boxing skills. Exciting as always, Bautista’s relentless style proved too much for the Indonesian, who went down to the canvas in the fourth round.
The win improves Bautista’s record to 27-2, 20 KOs while Marbun drops to 19-6-1, 7 KOs.

While I am happy for Bautista’s victory at his debut at featherweight, he is not yet ready to fight at world-class level. His victory over Marbun showed little improvements from last year’s loss to Heriberto Ruiz. If Bautista fights the same manner at such bloc where the level of competition is high, he will be eventually leveled.

Here are my points:

• The first loss to Denial Ponce de Leon exposed Bautista’s chin. While the Bohol native packs power, his chin is very much suspect;

• In his second loss to Heriberto Ruiz, Bautista can be easily outboxed by a much more experienced fighter.

Last night’s fight displayed more or less the same Bautista who got schooled by Ruiz – reckless and heavily dependent on his powerful right hand.

Though it can be argued that Marbun is no hard hitter, trading punches from the get go with little to average defense can be an ingredient to a loss.

Featherweight at the elite level includes the names Chris John, Cristobal Cruz, and Steven Luevano. While Bautista certainly has what it takes to make his mark at featherweight, he needs more than raw punching power if he wants to be on top of this division.

His punches can go boom boom, but he won’t certainly boom boom his way to the top. He needs to improve.

Granted the fact that he has injured his wrist prior to the De Leon fight, what Bautista needs to do is train his defense and improve his somewhat lackluster technical skills. Fans do love a slugger and would love to see a good exchange of flurries every now and then, at which Bautista really is capable of administering, but I guess it won’t hurt him if he adds some boxing tricks to his bag.

Still, congratulations are in order and I wish him the best in his future fights.