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PONCE DE LEON READY TO FIGHT PE?ALOSA IN MANILA By Ronnie Nathanielsz PhilBoxing.com Fri, 18 Apr 2008  WBO super bantamweight champion Daniel Ponce De Leon says he is ready to enter ?hostile territory? and put his title on the line in a rematch against WBO bantamweight champion Gerry Penalosa but the purse has to ?be a reasonable amount.? Speaking through his manager Joe Hernandez who acted as interpreter on the Sports Chat radio show of Main Event TV analyst Dennis Prince in which we parrticipated, De Leon said they never mentioned an amount in discussions on a rematch and stressed that ?once we deal with Juan Manuel Lopez (in June) we would love nothing more than to go to the Philippines to fight either Penalosa or Rey ?Boom Boom? Bautista.? There had been reports that Ponce De Leon wanted a purse of $600,000 to defend his title against Penalosa in the Philippines while Penalosa himself was reportedly asking for $400,000 which effectively scuttled the plan for a rematch in Manila. However, it now seems that both camps have scaled down their demands and conversations have resumed with Golden Boy Promotions holding the key. De Leon said he believes that a ?more attractive fight for the Filipinos and the networks would be a rematch with Bautista.? Hernandez said ?we were very fortunate that we fought Bautista and caught him with a lucky shot.? Hernandez added, Ponce De Leon would be ?ready, willing and able to travel to the Philippines and more than happy to defend his title there.? When told that Penalosa at 35 wants a couple of big fights before he retires and that Bautista is young and needs to rebuild his confidence after the first round knockout he suffered at the hands of Ponce De Leon last August 11, Hernandez responded, ?we would fight Penalosa first and Bautista and if we are still holding up the title we will fight whoever it is at the scheduled time.? Ponce De Leon conceded that while the fight was closer than the shutout scored by one of the judges in his first fight with Penalosa, he believed he won at least eight of the twelve rounds. Ponce De Leon revealed that Penalosa was ?tougher than we had thought? and that they believed he was ?smaller, that he was over the hill and that?s where we made the biggest mistake.? The super bantamweight champion said he didn?t wish to make any predictions on what would happen in a rematch with Penalosa because he made ?the biggest mistake of my life" when he predicted that bantamweight champion Jhonny Gonzales would knock Penalosa out. Penalosa himself has been itching for a rematch and has said he was confident he would win after the lessons he had learned from the first clash with Ponce De Leon. At the same time Penalosa disclosed that his manager Billy Keane had discussed the possibility of a rematch with Golden Boy Promotions vice president and international matchmaker Eric Gomez prior to Penalosa?s mandatory title defense against former world champion Ratanachai Sor Vorapin. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.  |
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