Gabuco bowed to lanky hometown bet E Naiyan, while Irish Magno got beaten by Ri Hyang Mi of North Korea and newcomer Riza Pasuit, a prized find from Bacolod City, dropped a split decision to Meiling Gao of China.
Gabuco was stunned by the decision, confident that she had done enough to earn the win.
“I thought I delivered the more effective blows, the only time she hurt me was in the 3rd round when she caught me with a wayward hook. But otherwise, I thought I had the edge. Obviously, the judges thought differently,” said a visibly dejected Gabuco.
The setbacks left Nesthy Petecio as the lone entry with burning hopes of making it to the victory podium. Petecio had stopped his Uzbek rival, Aziza Yakubova, in the preliminaries Saturday.(mb.com)