When 2022 came ashore, Philippine boxing looked as if it was going to end the year with a big bang.
Besides, as early as January, there were five reigning world champions listed: Nonito Donaire, Mark Magsayo, Jerwin Ancajas, John Riel Casimero and Rene Mark Cuarto.
Just halfway through the year, the list had been decimated and by the third quarter, the last man standing — Magsayo — had also gone down.
In the absence of a flag-bearer, a few good men attempted to bring the luster back.
But four-division champion Donnie Nietes and Jonas Sultan failed to hit their targets, losing their respective world title bids in heartbreaking fashion.
Ancajas, who had lost his crown jewels earlier in the year, had an opportunity to regain it but Argentine Fernando Martinez simply had him all figured out as the South American ran away with a lopsided decision in October in their International Boxing Federation super-flyweight title encounter in Carson, California.
Ancajas, Magsayo, Donaire and Cuarto lost theirs on top of the ring while Casimero saw his reign vanish in thin smoke when the World Boxing Organization stripped him of the bantamweight throne for committing back-to-back infractions.
Donaire, who gave Japanese Naoya Inoue a taste of hell in their first showdown in 2019, got blown away easily in the rematch as the Filipino-American puncher surrendered his World Boxing Council bantam diadem in just two rounds.
PHILIP FONG/agence france-presse
NONITO Donaire Jr. (right) gets punished by the heavy blows of Naoya Inoue of Japan in their WBC bantamweight battle.
Unlike their previous clash, it was easy-breezy for Inoue this time as he didn’t give the Las Vegas-based Donaire the chance to inflict damage.
A left to the jaw by Inoue sent Donaire down like a sack of potatoes, forcing the referee to immediately call a mercy halt in the scheduled 12-rounder at the Saitama Super Arena in June.
Magsayo, who had won the WBC feather title in the third week of January by upsetting Gary Russell Jr. was forced to make a mandatory defense and he fell to the long-armed Mexican Rey Vargas in San Antonio, Texas, in July.
Cuarto also got his championship — the IBF minimumweight plum — taken away by Daniel Valladares in Mexico on that same month on hostile territory.
With all champions taken down in the last quarter of the year, a ray of hope emerged with the string of rousing wins by those who are rated highly in their respective weight classes.
Vincent Astrolabio suddenly found himself in a position to fight for a world title by scoring a stoppage of Brooklyn-based Russian Nikolai Potapov in December in Las Vegas.
Also posting key wins include ex-world champion Marlon Tapales and fellow California-based fighter Jade Bornea, both representing JC Mananquil’s promotional outfit based in General Santos City.
Tapales’ shot at the world title is in the process of getting done while Bornea’s shot at Martinez’s strap is likewise nearly a done deal.
Donaire, assuming he decides to carry on with his Hall of Fame career, will likely figure in a title shot in the event Inoue leaves the 118-lb ranks and heads for the super-bantamweight seas.
The biggest of them all — eight division champion Manny Pacquiao — stayed retired throughout the year but may have provided a sneak-peek into 2023 by doing an exhibition in Korea in December.
Pacquiao swears he still has a lot left in the tank and his last fight could end up being fought here.
In the end, it was a tragic 2022 that was made even more painful by that devastating Donaire defeat.
But given the sudden surge in the final quarter, Philippine boxing looks primed to get up the floor.
