It’s not often that you get to watch a fight end in one round.
But last Tuesday, I had the chance to see one at the Midas Hotel and Casino when Filipino Reymart Gaballo needed — 32 seconds to be exact — to finish off his Thai rival, Phai Pharob.
I was several rows away and glanced at my phone to check my messages when the crowd roared.
The next thing I saw was Pharob on the deck, clutching the right side of his ribcage and referee Danrex Tapdasan administering the count.
When Tapdasan reached 10, poor Pharob was still down and, in a snap, one of his cornermen went over to the fallen fighter.
Soon, the ringside doctor was attending to him, determining if the boxer needed to be stretchered out of the ring en route to the hospital.
Although Pharob got hit with two head shots — a left hook and a right straight — as as part of Gaballo’s three-punch combination that was capped by a left hook to his liver, it was obvious what sent him crashing to the floor.
“The punch to the ribcage or near the liver area did the trick,” one jaded observer of the fight game was overheard as saying.
While almost everyone got mesmerized by the victory, there were still those who thought the Thai just went out there for the money.
Some guy joked that Pharob had a flight to catch for Bangkok.
“There’s a red-eye flight and he’s booked on that one,” said a fight fan.
Another insisted that Pharob was hoping to go to the nearby Mall of Asia for some late-night sightseeing and a bit of shopping.
“There’s a taxi waiting for him outside,” another fellow who can make some money doing standup comedy said.
When he got knocked out, it was just 9:10 p.m.
But let’s give credit to Gaballo for his lightning-quick demolition of Pharob.
Hats off to his lead trainer Nonito Donaire Sr.
Kudos to his promoter JC Mananquil, whose love for boxing is phenomenal.
With the win, Gaballo will find himself sharing the ring with Jason Moloney of Australia for the World Boxing Organization bantamweight crown.
There’s already a date and a venue: 12 May in Australia.
Sean Gibbons, whose MP Promotions shares rights with Mananquil’s Sanman Boxing, is excited because the Philippines stands a great chance of winning a world title.
Gaballo is heavy-handed and skilled.
If he sticks to the gameplan that Donaire Sr. will soon come up with, Moloney will end up getting dethroned before his adoring fans.
And it’s going to be earth-shaking if Gaballo does it in one round.
