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Philippines, 03 May 2024 |
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From Hero to Back to Zero By Teodoro Medina Reynoso PhilBoxing.com Mon, 01 Aug 2022  For nearly thirty years, we were used to having at least a pair of world boxing champions which even rose in certain years to as much as five simultaneously holding major belts. It was no coincidence that this heady, golden era in Philippine boxing started with the rise of Manny Pacquiao who by himself accounted for eight world titles from 1998 through 2021 ensuring that unprecedented trend in the annals of Filipino fistic saga. That golden era is no more. Precipitated by Pacquiao being stripped of the last of his eight crowns by the WBA, the former global boxing monolith that had history of inflicting injustice to Filipino fighters including the late great Flash Elorde whom they removed from their ratings as soon as he lost the world title he had held for seven long years! Pacquiao losing in his bid to retake his rightful crown to Cuban giant Yordenis Ugas and subsequent retirement from boxing was almost anti climatic. Soon, one by one the remaining Filipino world titlists lost their trinkets, most in controversial manner. Vic Saludar his WBO minimumweight crown in the Dominican Republic, Jerwin Ancajas getting defrocked of his once long held IBF super flyweight title in an upset in Las Vegas, Nonito Donaire again losing his bantamweight crown, this time the WBC, to arch nemesis Naoya Inoue in Japan, Rene Cuarto losing his IBF minimumweight belt in Mexico and finally, Mark Magsayo dropping his just won WBC featherweight championship to Mexico's lanky Rey Vargas. In between these loses atop the ring, multi division world champion Johnriel Casimero was stripped of his three-year-old WBO bantamweight after another weight-related snafu in the UK via sauna disqualification. Of course, a few Filipino fighters likewise lost in their bid for world titles, mostly in Japan and Thailand. They included former multi division world champion Donnie Nietes who had earlier vacated his hard fought WBO super flyweight title in 2019 only to come back two years later in a bid to reclaim it but lost by wide margin to Kazuto Ioka, ironically the same Japanese he originally narrowly beat in 2018 for the same belt. Big losers also included Geimel Magramo, Milan Melindo, Jonathan Taconing, Jeo Santissima and Edward Heno who were expected to put up a stiff challenge at least but fell short, a few dismally. So we are back, not to square one, but ZERO. What is good about this is we have nowhere to go but up. That is, if we don't stagnate or revert to that period when we had to console and content ourselves with minor "world" titles, the ones usually dispensed by nondescript and obscure boxing bodies as the WBF, GBU and yes, even the IBO. Or minor international belts dispensed by the four major boxing bodies - WBC, WBA, IBF and the WBO. It is therefore disturbing that local boxing authorities and fans, mostly casuals anyway, alike were gushing over the victories over the weekend of two popular undefeated Filipino fighters namely Dave Apolinario and the so called Ifugao wonder boy Carl Jammes Martin that netted them such varieties of boxing titles. Well, not to rain in their parade, this could be a start to our quest to reclaim boxing glory. But the way these events were played up and how many fans reacted especially in the social media where many instant boxing bloggers and boxing factotum made a killing about these "great news" in their contents, are unsettling especially to the boxing purists. Certainly, Dave Apolinario travelling all the way to South Africa and knocking out, in the very first round no less, the veteran home fighter and defending champion Gideon Buthelezi, was really admirable. But he was not the first Pinoy fighter to do it in South Africa. Edrin Dapudong did it many years back against the same Buthelezi. Then there's Rey Loreto knocking out his more illustrious South African opponent, not once but twice before his home crowd. All in so called world title bouts as sanctioned by the International Boxing Organization or IBO. Let us admit it, however that that IBO world title is nothing but a consuelo de bobo for a country bereft of major boxing title victories for nearly a year now. Not a few Filipino fighters had, as I said, won IBO world titles before, it did not do wonders to them or their fistic careers. As they say, beggars can't be choosers but is it really worth our while to risk potentially our best flyweight bet in Dave Apolinario in his first overseas sojourn fighting for an IBO belt? Good thing, Buthelezi was no longer as potent as he was years ago. I still believe we should choose our battles. What I find incredulous was the amount of fanfare, especially in the social media over Carl Jammes Martin's decision win over a certain Charles Tondo of Tanzania in defense of his WBA Asia super bantamweight belt whatever that means recently. Many fans treated the Tanzanian as if he was a most worthy opponent for their handsome idol from up North. Had they cared to fact check, they would know that Tondo was not even the top fighters from his country and that Martin was higher than his #234 ranking as per boxrec. Most egged Martin to knock him out but their youthful idol failed miserably, tried hard as he did and they attributed it to Tondo's toughness rather than Martin's power lack. In fairness, Tondo in all his six defeats as against 12 wins, has never been knocked out in his previous loss before this defeat to Martin, the Tanzanian was defeated also by points by a fighter from the UK who was highly rated featherweight in his country and top 50 in the world. But then again, a year back, he got outpointed by a Mexican at flyweight. If we are to realize Martin's full potentials as a near future world challenger at the very least, we have to give him better training and conditioning. And we have to expose him against better and world caliber competitions, not just here but abroad. The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.  |
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