Lanky Madrid fighter Arturo Lim proved insurmountable for Battambang’s Van Chanvait, who lost by points decision Saturday at the TV3 boxing arena

TO the applause of few, Spaniard Arturo Lim beat Van Chanvait on points Saturday in the main event at the TV3 boxing arena. In the co-feature, Phon Phana stopped Yuki Chiba of Japan in the third with an elbow.

“That was one of my hardest fights,” said Lim, a 23-year-old native of Madrid who fights out of the Muay Thai Plaza gym in Bangkok. “He hurt me with his kicks. On the first one I felt my leg [give].”

Lim, who at 1.85 metres held a significant height advantage over his opponent, started aggressively and largely controlled the fight from the opening bell.

He kept Van Chanvait on the outside with push kicks and scored with roundhouses from the right and knees from both sides.

Van Chanvait countered well in the first two rounds, slipping Lim’s high swinging punch and scoring with low kicks to the leg. But as Lim began charging forward in the third, Van Chanvait became more and more evasive.

Frustration showed early in the fourth when Lim raised his gloves and shot Van Chanvait a fierce glance, taunting him to stand and fight.

“I am a knee fighter, so I like to fight close” Lim said. “But he wanted to run around the ring.”

With the fight slipping away in the fourth, Van Chanvait had little choice but to plant his feet. He caught Lim with several elbows, but Lim answered with elbows of his own and long straight punches, catching Van Chanvait flush on several occasions.

As the outcome of the bout became obvious, the raucous house fell quiet. Circling the ring in the fifth, Lim raised his gloves in victory, but no one cheered.

Phon Phana drops Yuki Chabi in third

In the second international bout on the card, Koh Kong’s Phon Phana smashed Japan’s Yuki Chabi with elbows to score an easy third-round knockout.

While winning is nice, the prize in prizefighting lies in the cash handouts that adorning fans give to support their fighters. And on Saturday, Phon Phana came up penniless.

“It’s a tragedy,” he said after the fight, as Chabi squirmed in pain under the doctor’s hand. “I didn’t have any sponsors.”

The absence of crowd support may have mirrored the amount of challenge that Chabi presented, which was zero.

Throughout the opening six minutes of the fight, Phon Phana stalked the 22-year-old Japanese fighter around the ring like a cobra playing with its prey, striking effortlessly but without venom.

Even so, Chabi looked worn out after two rounds, and the crowd giggled nervously in anticipation of the brutal fate that awaited him.

When Phon Phana finally cut loose in the third round, Chabi lasted about 90 seconds before crashing to the canvass under the weight of an elbow. He managed to get back to his feet by the count of eight. But bleeding from a cut on the head and unable to open his left eye, he was in no shape to continue, and referee Troeung Sossay waved the fight over.

Next TV3 international fights

TV3 hosts international fights every other weekend. Saturday was the station’s second international card since returning to live boxing coverage earlier this month. Ei Phouthang and Eam Vutha will appear on the next card March 6.