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Defending lightweight champion Lao Sinath scored a third-round knockdown against Van Chanvey Sunday, and cruised easily to a points decision to retain his title at the CTN boxing arena.

Lao Sinath, a southpaw, landed a powerful right-left combination early in the third, sending Van Chanvey careening across the ring into the ropes and tumbling to the canvas. The champ came charging forward after the count, hunting for a stoppage, but Van Chanvey quickly found his composure, countered well and used his feet to stay elusive.

“He didn’t want to fight; he wanted to run,” said Hong Suen, Lao Sinath’s trainer at the Commando 911 Boxing Club.

The judges’ scores were not announced, but the final decision could not have been anything but unanimous.

Lao Sinath, 25, dictated the pace of the fight from opening bell, pushing forward through all five rounds and forcing Van Chanvey, 23, to fight off the back foot.

Using long jabs and push kicks, Lao Sinath worked his height and reach advantage to keep the shorter Van Chanvey on the outside. He scored with punches, knees and low kicks in effortless combinations.

On the rare occasion that Van Chanvey ventured inside, he found the champ’s defense impenetrable. In five rounds, Van Chanvey landed virtually nothing of substance.

After tasting Lao Sinath’s power in the third, Van Chanvey appeared reluctant to exchange. In the fourth, an apparently frustrated Lao Sinath responded to his opponent’s evasiveness with a questioning smirk and shrugged shoulders.

It was unusual, though perhaps unsurprising, to see a typically dominant Van Chanvey so completely contained. The Battambang native had earned a title shot against Lao Sinath by demolishing the pack during last year’s CTN lightweight tournament.

Van Chanvey lead the eight-man field with five knockouts, four of them coming in the first or second round, and he finished the competition with a seven-fight winning streak, including two huge decision upsets over Long Sophy and Kao Roomchang.

But against the taller, faster, stronger Lao Sinath, Van Chanvey’s power proved far too little, as nearly everyone had expected.

Oddsmakers had Van Chanvey a 10-to-1 underdog at opening bell.

In a brief, prefight interview with CTN ring announcer Ith Sita, Van Chanvey answered questions about his chances of winning with a decidedly apprehensive “50 percent.”

Phan Phanath, one of Van Chanvey’s trainers at Club Preah Khan Reach, answered similar questions with a bashful smile and a silent shake of the head.

During prefight preparations, former lightweight champion Sarim Vonthon offered Van Chanvey a fight plan that sounded less like a strategy and more like a prayer. “You go in there, you catch him with an elbow, you put him to sleep, and you win this thing,” he said.

But the fight gods were not listening.

Lao Sinath won the lightweight title from Sarim Vonthon in 2008. He successfully defended against Long Sophy in February 2009, scoring a third-round knockout.

He will go to France in February, for what is expected to be a three-month stay with three fights scheduled.

Master Sarun Chea’s Story

Master Sarun Chea is a traditional Bradahl Serey (Khmer Kickboxing) trainer with more than thirty years combined experience in competing, teaching and promoting. He has been teaching students in Australia for seventeen years and has attracted a loyal following of students, fight-fans and industry contacts.

Rahu Promotions is the brain-child or Master Sarun’s desire to revive traditional ideals in modern kickboxing. His aim is to nurture good sportsmanship in fighters and fans by promoting fighters who display discipline and respect both inside and outside of the ring. Combined with traditional entertainment and the presence or important community leaders this will serve to make Australian kickboxing a sport open and welcome to the mainstream, as it is in Asia.

Master Sarun is also aiming to use Rahu Promotions to showcase the very similar cultures of Cambodia, Thailand and Laos by displaying high-class athletes from those three countries, and emphasizing the origins of the sport. He seeks to educate both the Australian community, who have demonstrated a strong interest in the traditional practice and customers of Asian kickboxing, and also to instill a much needed sense of pride in the young Australian-born children of Cambodia, Thailand and Laos

Gym Info

Lesson Times
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For more Information or Enquiries contact on
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Address: Warehouse 10/80 Hogarth Road, Elizabeth South SA 5112
Web: www.sunrisebradahlserey.com.au

LAO Sinath will make his second title defense at 60 kilograms Sunday when he faces Battambang knockout artist Van Chanvey at the CTN boxing arena.
Lao Sinath holds titles in both the 60- and 63.5-kilogram brackets. He won the 60-kilogram title from Sarim Vonthon in 2008, which he then successfully defended against Long Sophy in February this year with a third-round knockout.

“Nobody wants to fight him,” said Hong Suen, Lao Sinath’s trainer at the Commando 911 Boxing Club, as his star protege worked the clinch with Chey Kosal during a recent training session.

An invitation to fight in France awaits Lao Sinath if he can beat Van Chanvey Sunday, which nearly everyone expects him to do. The three-month trip would likely see him fight three times, earning US$1,000 or more each fight which is 10 times or more of what he could earn in a typical bout at home.

A native of Kampong Speu, Lao Sinath, 25, picked up his new passport last week.

Club Preah Khan Reach fighter Van Chanvey will be making his first attempt at a title. The 23-year-old from O’Cha, Battambang, beat out eight other fighters in a round-robin tournament to earn the title shot.

Van Chanvey lost once early in the tournament to Kao Roomchang, but he finished the competition with a seven-fight winning streak, which included five knockouts, to take first place.

Van Chanvey scored a huge upset decision over Long Sophy in the semifinals, and an even bigger upset decision over Kao Roomchang in the final.

Still, Hong Suen, wearing a black t-shirt with a dagger, machine guns and a cobra emblazoned below the words “Special Forces,” hardly appeared worried.

“Do you think he can run with Lao Sinath?” he asked, then answered his own question with a hearty laugh. “We’ve got the height advantage, and probably the speed advantage,” he asserted. “We’re going to be okay.”

Kao Roomchang overpowers familiar foe Vung Noy with harder kicks and heavier punches to earn a close decision victory Sunday at Bayon TV arena

 

Photo by: Robert Starkweather

Kao Roomchang (left, blue shorts) gave everything he had to opponent Vung Noy (right) to emerge victorious by points decision at Bayon TV boxing arena Sunday.

Photo by: Robert Starkweather

The fight referee awards Kao Roomchang (right) the victory by points over Vung Noy (left) after their bout.

SUNDAY’S bout was Vung Noy’s third meeting with Kao Roomchang since July, when the latter scored two knockdowns en route to a decisive points victory. The two met again in November in the semifinals of the lightweight tournament. Kao Roomchang won that bout, too, but not by nearly as much.

On Sunday, they fought blow-for-blow in a bloody, high-wattage brawl. Vung Noy turned in a ferocious performance, his best effort to date, but remained unable to beat the stronger, harder-hitting Kao Roomchang.

Vung Noy cut Kao Roomchang twice with elbows; a tiny nick at the hairline in the second round, and a thicker gash just next to it in the third. The larger cut bled for the rest of the fight, covering Kao Roomchang’s forehead with a gory splash of crimson, but never became factor.

“He’s got a thick face, Vung Noy,” remarked Kao Roomchang afterward. “I hit him with many elbows, but he never cut.”

It didn’t matter. Kao Roomchang’s strength advantage, evident early, proved enough.

Seconds into the first round, Kao Roomchang landed a spinning back kick to the face that put Vung Noy on the canvas, and he knocked Vung Noy off his feet with powerful low kicks several times throughout the bout.

In a supercharged series of clashes in the middle rounds, the pair enthralled the packed house with a wild exchange of spinning back kicks, fists and elbows.

Vung Noy scored with the cut, but Kao Roomchang never appeared hurt, and the blood only energised his offense.

He punished Vung Noy with a series of powerful punches late in the third round, sending Vung Noy hard into the ropes.

With the threat of stoppage in the air, Kao Roomchang unloaded in the fourth, opening the round with a hard left-right-kick combination and never letting up.

He landed more low kicks, sending Vung Noy back to the canvas, and rocked him with three staggering straight left, right elbow combinations.

Vung Noy countered with elbows from both sides and knees to the body, scoring well, but he was unable to slow a relentless Kao Roomchang.

With the crowd clapping and chanting in rhythm to the music, the pair finished round four with a vicious exchange of elbows at centre ring, then returned wearily to the corners.

“That was everything I had,” Kao Roomchang said.

Twenty-three-year-old derails Kao Roomchang’s seemingly unstoppable march into lightweight title contention with a stunning upset victory at CTN arena

 

Photo by: Robert Starkweather

Club Preah Khan Reach fighter Van Chanvey (right) scored a big upset over Club Anlong Veng’s Kao Roomchang Sunday to take first place in the lightweight tournament.

WORKING behind crafty defense and a thunderous right roundhouse, Van Chanvey scored a narrow majority decision over Kao Roomchang Sunday to take first place in the 60-kilogram tournament, and land a title shot against current champion Lao Sinath.

Four judges at the CTN boxing arena scored the fight 98-97 in favor of Van Chanvey. The fifth scored it 98-97 for Kao Roomchang.

Considered two of the most dangerous fighters in the division, Van Chanvey and Kao Roomchang collided for the first time in August in one of the most memorable fights of the year. Kao Roomchang took the decision in that bout, and odds makers had him a 10-7 favorite heading into Sunday’s highly anticipated tournament final.

Kao Roomchang, the 21-year-old rising star from Battambang, pushed the action in all five rounds. He thrilled an overflowing house with flashy spinning back kicks and head-snapping straight right hands. But somehow, he could not translate busier into better.

“I don’t know how I lost,” Kao Roomchang said. “I used my elbows effectively, I punched well, and I countered his kicks with knees. I thought he won only round four.”

The fight was every bit as close as the scorecards would indicate, and the pair predictably fought blow for blow in a bloody, fast-paced contest.

 

Photo by: Robert Starkweather

Long Sophy (right) lands a head shot on Vung Noy during their third-place playoff bout Sunday.

Kao Roomchang opened a thin cut just below the Van Chanvey’s left eyebrow in the second.

“He got me with a punch,” Van Chanvey said. “It wasn’t an elbow.”

Van Chanvey, 23, drew even in the third, reopening an old wound above Kao Roomchang’s left eye with an elbow.

It was exactly the same spot where he cut Kao Roomchang in their first clash.

That bout produced one of the most savage rounds of boxing in recent memory, as the pair stood on each other’s toes and traded elbows nearly every second of the third round.

On Sunday, however, Van Chanvey appeared reluctant to engage in yet another debilitating battle of attrition. Instead, he fought smartly, working patiently behind a left jab and scoring with knees and hard right roundhouse kicks.

Defensively, he used his feet to stay elusive, and made Kao Roomchang chase him around the ring.

Kao Roomchang certainly had his moments. He scored hard shots in every round. But whatever the crowd saw, the judges did not.
Van Chanvey will face Lao Sinath on January 3 for the 60kg title. That bout will also take place at the CTN boxing arena.

Long Sophy earns international bout
On the undercard, Long Sophy pummeled Vung Noy with punches to score a convincing decision victory and take third place in the tournament.

Fighting at a torrid pace, Long Sophy pounded Vung Noy with relentless left jabs and straight right hands in all five rounds.
Vung Noy’s face was marked and red by the end of the second round.

At the close of the fourth, Long Sophy caught a tired Vung Noy against the ropes and unloaded a devastating flurry of punches to the head and body. Only the bell saved him.