THE Philippines’ Riza Pasuit and Ronald Chavez, Jr. pulled off contrasting results to launch their respective campaigns with a bang in the World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England on Saturday.

Ms. Pasuit overwhelmed Saudi Arabia’s Ragad Alnaimi via a second-round RSC (referee stopped contest) victory that catapulted the Southeast Asian Games silver medalist straight to the round-of-16 of the women’s 60-kilogram class.

There, she will battle Brazilian Rebeca Santos, who drew an opening round bye, on Tuesday.

For the 26-year-old Chavez, whose father Ronald, Sr. and uncle Arlo were Olympians, he had to draw strength from a strong start to overcome a late, furious challenge of Irishman Matthew McCole via a win on points, 3-2.

It propelled Mr. Chavez to the round-of-16 of the men’s 70kg class versus Frenchman Makan Traore, who smashed Chinese Taipei’s Kan Chia-Wei, 5-0.

But it wasn’t all rainbows as the country suffered its first casualty following Junmilardo Ogayre’s 5-0 defeat at the hands of Kazakhstan’s Biibars Zhexen in the men’s 60kg round-of-32.

Tokyo Olympics silver winner Carlo Paalam was trying to advance further as he was tackling Dominican Republic’s Junior Alcantara in the men’s 55kg on Sunday.

The two-time Olympian from Cagayan de Oro was coming off a dominant unanimous win over Taiwanese Hsu Chiao Chun on Friday.

Also fighting for dear life was Mark Ashley Fajardo, who was clashing with Ukrainian Elvin Aliiev in the men’s 65kg section. — Joey Villar