Carlo Paalam punches japanese foe goodbye, Paalam says hello to gold medal round

Carlo Paalam showed finesse as he defeated his Japanese opponent Ryomei Tanaka in their semifinal bout. Carlo Paalam will now move to the gold medal round of the boxing men’s flyweight division at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

The Opening Round

Carlo Paalam showed calm in the opening round. Tanaka has the reach and height advantage and started throwing straights and jabs in the first round. Paalam responded with clean counter punches. At the end, the judges unanimously gave the first round to the Filipino boxer.

Clean punches in the second round

In the second round, Carlo Paalam continued in giving clean shots. Most of his punches made the Japanese fighter’s head tilt back. Maybe sensing the power of Paalam the Japanese fighter started to clinch the Filipino boxer and in one instance the Japanese fighter raised his shoulder in the clinch almost hitting Carlos’ jaw, to which the Filipino fighter called the attention of the referee. This however made the Filipino fighter throw more clean punches and these clean punches made the judges give the second round to Paalam.

Desperate third round

Having won two rounds the Japanese fighter moved into desperate boxing, mostly clinching and holding Carlo Paalam. The Filipino fighter however continued throwing clean and powerful punches and remained calm. In the midst of desperation, the Tanaka clinched, held down, and threw down Tanaka to the mat, just like a sumo-wrestling move. Despite this, the Filipino fighter still threw clean punches and made Tanaka’s head a target.

The judges gave a unanimous decision in favor of Carlo Paalam who will now be moving to the gold medal round. Carlo Paalam will be fighting Galal Yafai of Great Britain for the finals.