Knockout CP Freshmart had another solid performance in defending his WBA strawweight championship, but his opponent made Freshmart work to defend the title.
Freshmart, real name Thammanoon Niyomtrong, defended his title against Rey Loreto in Freshmart’s native Thailand on July 15 via unanimous decision (117-110, 117-110, 115-113). That was Freshmart’s third defense of the title.
The fight saw Loreto dominate the action in the first couple of rounds, but Freshmart started outworking the challenger in the third round. Freshmart dropped Loreto in the ninth round with a right cross, the only knockdown of the fight. A late rally by Loreto in the championship rounds was not enough for the challenger to win the match in the scorecards.
It was still a solid fight with both men getting a lot of offense throughout the fight. In some moments, Loreto was the aggressor and throwing a higher volume of punches, even getting Freshmart’s left eye to swell up.
The loss marked Loreto’s 14th of his career, but his first since 2013, snapping a seven-fight win streak. During that win streak, Loreto also captured the IBO light flyweight title.
Freshmart has held some version of the WBA world title (either interim or regular) since 2014. Since the beginning of his career, Freshmart has been one of the top strawweight boxers in the world, winning the WBC Youth world strawweight title since his debut fight back in 2012. Freshmart is the No. 3 boxer in the light flyweight/strawweight Fightful boxing rankings.
