The way it looks, lefty Gerry Pe?alosa will either have to bring a knife or carry a handgun atop the ring on Saturday night (Sunday morning in Manila) to beat Mexican knockout king Daniel Ponce de Leon.
The leading internet betting site sportsbook.com listed the 34-year-old Pe?alosa a +160 underdog in the fight.
In sharp contrast, De Leon has been installed as the -200 favorite which means a bet of $ 200 for De Leon, the reigning World Boxing Organization (WBO) super-bantamweight titlist, will only earn $ 100.
A 0 wager on Pe?alosa will translate to a 0 return.
De Leon and Pe?alosa are slugging it out in the undercard of the super-featherweight brawl involving Marco Antonio Barrera and Juan Manuel Marquez in Las Vegas.
The odds are so stacked in 26-year-old De Leon’s corner that some believed this could be Pe?alosa’s final fight with the Mexican sending him off to retirement.
Handlers of De Leon, whose victory included a 52-second demolition of Thai Sid Looknongtoy last year, have in fact, expressed their concern for the well being of the Filipino who is coming out of semi-retirement.
They said the Filipino hopeful is a crafty operator but “is too small for a heavy-handed puncher like De Leon.”
Although Pe?alosa has fought in the super-bantamweight ranks of 122 lbs, he remains a small campaigner in the star-studded weight class.
De Leon parades a 30-1-0 win-loss-draw with 28 knockouts, while Pe?alosa sports a 51-5-2 record stuffed with 34 stoppages in a professional career that kicked off in 1989 under Cebu boxing patron Tony Aldeguer.
Pe?alosa reigned as World Boxing Council super-flyweight champion from February 1997 until August 1998. He had chances to regain the title but he was turned back by South Korean Injoo Cho and Japan-based North Korean Masamori Tokuyama.
In revving up for De Leon, Pe?alosa trained at the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood beginning in early-February.
