By Ronnie Nathanielsz

Hard-hitting Jonathan “Lightning” Taconing was frustrated once again in his second attempt to win the World Boxing Council light flyweight title when he was out-boxed and outsmarted by Mexican champion Ganigan “El Maravilla” Lopez at the Arena Coliseo in Mexico City.

Liza Elorde, wife of manager/promoter Johnny Elorde told The Standard, “I think we really lost” but took issue with the scorecards of two of the American judges who scored the hard fought twelve round decision by lopsided margins of 118-109 and 119-108.

Elorde said the 115-112 scorecard of the third judge was fair.

She also questioned referee Thomas Taylor’s deduction of a point in round 8 due to a head-butt that caused a cut on Lopez’ right eye although Ms. Elorde felt the cut was caused by a punch.

The taller Ganigan used his height and reach advantage to the fullest and used his stinging jab effectively to thwart the relentlessly aggressive Filipino who tried to pin the champion against the ropes and work to the body.

Taconing hurt Lopez in the 2nd round and again in the 5th when  Liza told us “we thought Lopez will go down but he clinched.”

The mandatory challenger went all-out in the final round looking for a knockout but Ganigan was too smart and refused to engage, obviously realizing he was ahead on the judges scorecards.

With the impressive win Lopez improved to 28-6 with 17 knockouts while Taconing dropped to 22-3-1 with 18 knockouts.

It was another heartbreaking loss for the Filipino southpaw who had then champion Pornsawan Porpramook in trouble in the 5th round but the Korean referee who did a terrible job stopped the fight in the 6th claiming the Thai champion couldn’t continue because of the cut and he was awarded a hugely controversial technical decision.

The late Don Jose Sulaiman in response to a bitter complaint from Johnny Elorde and this reporter had a panel review the fight tape and suspended referee Jae Bong Kim for one year.