Lion Fight 27 Highlight Video: Pinca Retains Title, Van Soest Adds Another

As expected, the action was superb inside the Lion Fight ring on Friday night as the country’s leading muay Thai promotion delivered another fabulous card on AXS TV at the Pechanga Resort and Casino. Highlighted by a championship doubleheader, two of Lion Fight’s best fighters dominated their foes with one retaining his title and the other adding one to her ever-growing resume.

France’s Fabio Pinca was stellar from the onset against challenger Charlie Peters, using better movement, precision striking and an excellent body attack to retain his welterweight crown. Pinca (93-33-4) was already controlling the pace comfortably and when he dropped the Englishman with a thudding shot to the body in the fourth, Peters (35-14) needed a knockout in order to win. Pinca never allowed the late rally to blossom and he won a lopsided unanimous decision via tallies of 49-44 on all three scorecards.

In the co-feature, the popular Tiffany Van Soest was equally as electric as she used superior speed, power and technique to overwhelm Ashley Nichols over five rounds. Though “Time Bomb” didn’t score a knockdown in the contest, her brilliant array of striking allowed the reigning Lion Fight featherweight champ to add the super bantamweight crown to her mantle. Van Soest (16-2-1) won easily by unanimous nod with scores of 50-45 and 49-46 (twice). Nichols dropped to 20-5.

Kronphet Phetrachapat won a controversial split decision over Gaston Bolanos in their matchup, taking home the victory with tallies of 48-47 (twice) and 47-48. Most observers felt that Bolanos did more than enough to warrant the verdict and when Phetrachapat was announced as the victor, the crowd nearly became hostile. Luckily cooler heads prevailed.

In other main card action, Brian Del Rosario edged Chris Culley via unanimous decision (49-46 x2, 48-47); Travis Clay topped Jared Papazian via unanimous nod (49-46 x3); and Anvar Boynazarov unanimously defeated Coke Chunhawat (49-46 x3).