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24.10.2007: That
is the question (And Now La Cobra?) that must be asked of
Dominican lightwelterweight Cristian
‘La Cobra’ Frias
after his attempt to get his career back on track with a jump up
to welterweight ended in failure. The Dutch-based 30-year-old
Frias slumped to his third successive points defeat against
Slawomir Ziemlewicz, now 18-3-2 (3 KO’s), by lopsided scores
of 100:91 (twice) and 100:90 in a fight billed for the
International Polish title last Thursday (Oct. 18) in Ilawa,
Poland.
When
all was said and done, Frias had no answers to the sheer size
and clever boxing of the hometown favourite on this Boxing
Europe show and in the last round had to dig deep to survive the
distance.
It
was a major disappointment for Team Frias, which included
trainer Joseph de Palm and manager Olaf Schroeder of Fight
Production. After remaining undefeated from 1999, when Frias
started his professional campaign on the Netherlands Antilles,
until 2006, the father-of-four now saw his record dip to 20-3-2
(16 KO’s) and must answer serious questions about his future.
“Yes,
if Cristian wants to retire, we will back him,” said manager
Schroeder, “but even though the scores tell a different story,
we were still proud of Cristian. He was boxing better than in
his last two fights and showed a lot of heart against a bigger
opponent. So if he wants another chance, he will get it, but at
no higher a division than lightwelter. Maybe he can even go back
to lightweight and Joseph will test that out at the gym.”
European
rings have proved tougher than those in the Carribbean for Frias
and for now there must remain serious question marks whether the
tatooed fighter can ever fullfill the high ambitions he and his
team had for him when he moved to the Netherlands last year.
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