PUNCH LINES
JULIAN TURNER
Samson Sor Siriporn |
The news that WBC women's light-fly champion Samson Sor Siriporn is being forced into a mandatory defence against number one challenger Julia Sahin means her well-publicised reign is about to come to an end.
Samson has been the most popular boxer in Thailand since she won the vacant belt inside the prison walls in April.
She beat a Japanese girl and was released as a reward for her achievement.
Convicted drug dealer Samson has since retained the belt twice, with her latest defence last Monday against Japan's Momo Koseki.
It was a scrappy fight and although it was billed as a world title fight neither boxer had skills anywhere near that tag.
They pushed, mauled, missed and cringed as they threw and took punches and it was a poor spectacle.
Samson's story has always been about her fight for freedom, but that is now firmly in the past and she will face a live opponent in Sahin, who has won all 19 of her fights.
Sahin is for real, while Samson has had the novelty aspect of her career to help with marketability.
It is hard not to like Lopburi-born Samson, who has made incredible strides to turn her life around after being sent to prison.
Many thought she would lose on Monday and she looked booked for defeat after a terribly slow start.
Samson grimaced every time she was hit, which makes you wonder how much sparring she had done for the contest.
It takes practice not to react to being punched on the nose and Samson just couldn't hide the effects of Koseki's blows.
Normally that only happens when two young novice amateurs meet in the ring and it was bizarre to watch it in a 'world title' fight.
Samson settled down later on and ground out the deserved 96-94, 96-94 and 97-94 points victory.
When the scores were read out she burst into tears and hugged those close to her, and it was obvious how much the victory meant.
The win increased her tally to 10 wins against two defeats and the WBC want her to face Sahin before next April.
I understand that Samson's camp had two options on Koseki if the Japanese girl had triumphed and it may have been more fruitful for the Thai if she had lost.
That way she could have sold the first option for a tidy sum and then enforced the second one for a rematch.
That is what former WBC flyweight champion Pongsaklek Wonjongkam did after he was beaten by Japan's Daisuke Naito earlier this year.
There have been reports Pongsaklek's camp sold the first option to Daiki Kameda for more than 15 million baht.
That is a big amount for losing a fight, and many find it disturbing boxers sometimes have more incentive to be defeated than to win.
Samson wouldn't have got anywhere near that amount because women's boxing isn't very lucrative in Asia, but now Sahin's shadow looms in her immediate future.
The best thing she can do is to go to Germany to defend her title on Sahin's patch. Women's boxing is very popular there and thousands of fans pay to watch decent match-ups.
Samson may not be very good but she is the WBC champion and her prison story has been widely reported around the world.
She has a name to trade on, and German fans will want to see her.
The Thai needs to get as much money as she can from tackling Sahin and then use the cash wisely to set herself up in business for the future.
She has made more than 400,000 baht from the sport, which is more than many talented male fighters, but her lack of talent will be exposed by the number one challenger.
The feather-fisted German has only stopped two opponents in 19 wins so she is in for a long night and needs to be paid well for it.
juliant@bangkokpost.co.th
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