Playing in the weight of 92kg in weight, Nguyen Manh Cuong won the semi -finals with the unbelievable scenario. He won early against the Philippine boxer in the second half, when the referee decided to stop the match when he saw that the strength of the two sides was too different. This is also the second time Manh Cuong has reached the final in 3 SEA Games.
The opponent of Nguyen Manh Cuong in the gold medal on Boxing Sea Games 32 is Abdula Rajapov. Once a boxing player Uzbekistan, Rajapov decided to naturalize to play for the Cambodian team at the end of last year. He soon showed his talent by winning the medal in the Asian boxing prize recently.
On the journey to enter the SEA Games final, Abdula Rajapov defeated Thai boxer Kitipat Pruesena in the semi -finals. It was one of the “strange” matches of the tournament, when Rajapov had many situations of tricks but was not warned. On the other side, Kitipat has quite a lot of situations that hit but dotted all 3 rounds.
Looking objectively, Rajapov has youthfulness, speed and strength. He also grew up from the Boxing Uzbekistan team, a country with the tradition of developing this martial art. However, limited international competition experience may be one of the disadvantages of “Khabib Cambodia”, and Manh Cuong can exploit that.
Earlier, on the first day of Boxing Finals, the Vietnamese team won 2 gold medals of Bui Phuoc Tung (71kg male weight) and Ha Thi Linh (63kg weight -weight class). These are all boxers with many years of experience of Boxing Vietnam, and success at the 32nd SEA Games has shown that.