Paalam stuns world champion to reach Asian Games boxing final

Carlo Paalam, the last Filipino boxer left in contention at the 2026 Asian Games, outlasted two-time world champion Makhmud Sabyrkhan of Kazakhstan in a 3-2 split decision on Wednesday to reach the men's 55-kilogram gold-medal bout, putting the Philippines on the verge of ending a 16-year drought in Asian Games boxing.

The semifinal, held at Nishio Gymnasium in Japan's Aichi Prefecture, turned on a knockdown Paalam scored in the second round and a point deduction he had to survive in the third. Three of five judges sided with the 28-year-old Filipino, who will fight Japan's Rui Yamaguchi for gold on Friday. The result, confirmed by the GMA Network and the Manila Times, locks in at least a silver medal for Paalam, his best Asian Games finish.

How the fight unfolded

Paalam came out aggressively, landing clean counters that earned him the opening round on four of the five scorecards. In the second, he sent Sabyrkhan to the canvas 42 seconds in and closed the round with a right straight, though the knockdown swung only two of the five cards his way, a sign of how tightly the bout was being scored. The third round turned physical: Paalam absorbed a point deduction from the referee and lost that round on the cards, 26-30, before rallying to take the final tally. When the scores were read, three judges had it 29-27, 29-28 and 29-27 for Paalam; two had it for Sabyrkhan, 29-27 and 30-26.

It was the second time Paalam has beaten Sabyrkhan, having edged the Kazakh 4-1 at the final of the 2022 Asian Elite Boxing Championships in Amman, Jordan, for his first continental bantamweight title. Wednesday's win carried considerably higher stakes: Sabyrkhan arrived in Japan as the reigning two-time world champion, having won gold at the 2023 World Championships in Tashkent and again at the 2025 World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, a run that got him voted World Boxing's Best Boxer of 2025.

"He'll come forward, and I'll just stick to my game. We'll just make sure we're the first to counter," Paalam said of his approach to the favored Kazakh.

A boxer chasing unfinished business

Paalam has been here before, just never quite this close. He won bronze at the 2018 Asian Games in Indonesia and was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the 2023 edition in Hangzhou. In between, he became a national sporting figure by taking flyweight silver at the Philippine Olympic Committee-backed delegation's breakout Tokyo Games in 2021, losing the final to Britain's Galal Yafai, and he competed again at the 2024 Paris Olympics before a quarterfinal exit. No Filipino boxer has won Asian Games gold since Rey Saludar took the flyweight division in 2010 in Guangzhou, China, a drought now stretching 16 years across four editions of the Games.

Paalam is also the last of the Philippines' boxers left in contention at this year's Games, a run that has put the burden of a medal squarely on him since the quarterfinal rounds. He is coached by Elmer Pamisa, who has guided him through the shift from flyweight to bantamweight over the past two Olympic cycles.

What it means for the Philippine delegation

The win adds another potential gold to a Philippine medal push that, through Wednesday, had produced three golds at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games: two from gymnast Carlos Yulo and one from pole vaulter Ernest John "EJ" Obiena. The Olympic Council of Asia, which governs the quadrennial Games, has billed this 20th edition — running September 19 to October 4 across Aichi Prefecture and the city of Nagoya — as the largest in the event's history, with more than 11,000 athletes from 45 countries and regions competing across 43 sports.

For Philippine boxing specifically, the stakes of Friday's final go beyond one medal. The sport has been a reliable source of Olympic success for the country — Paalam's Tokyo silver was part of a wave that also produced a gold for weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz that year — but Asian Games gold has proven elusive even as Filipino boxers have reached finals and semifinals repeatedly over the past decade. A win Friday would be the program's first continental Games title since Saludar's in 2010.

What happens next

Paalam will face Yamaguchi, who is competing on home soil, in the gold-medal bout on Friday, October 2, scheduled for 12:45 p.m. Manila time. Yamaguchi advanced with a unanimous decision over Mongolia's Bilguunsaikhan Kharkhuu in his own semifinal and arrives having been the top seed at this year's Asian Boxing Championships in the same weight class.

Whatever the outcome, Paalam has already secured the best Asian Games result of his career. A gold medal would complete a run that began with a first-round bye and continued through four rounds of elimination bouts:

• Round of 16: defeated India's Jadumani Singh by majority decision
• Quarterfinal: defeated China's Zhang Jiamao by split decision
• Semifinal: defeated Kazakhstan's Makhmud Sabyrkhan, the two-time world champion, by split decision, 3-2
• Final (October 2): faces Japan's Rui Yamaguchi for gold

The Philippine Star and other outlets covering the Games noted that Paalam's path has run almost entirely through higher-seeded opposition, making Wednesday's win over a sitting world champion the clearest signal yet that his move up from flyweight to bantamweight, made after the Paris Olympics, has paid off. Philippine boxing has produced Asian Games champions before, most recently Saludar in 2010, but none since — a gap that has persisted even as the country's boxers kept reaching finals and medal rounds through the 2010s and 2020s.