CHICAGO ? The white BMW 528i Sedan arrived at the Arco Arena at 3:30 pm. Realtor Rory Apellanes sat in front, while businessman Rocky Gatal drove the ?ultimate driving machine.?
I was in the back seat of the BMW. The other passenger beside me was lawyer Dan Neri Lim Jr., the mayor of Tagbilaran City in Bohol.
Using my allotted media parking space, we pulled over in front of the Arco Arena at around 3:30 p.m. last Saturday.
Diosdado Gabi had just won his bout when I eased into my ringside seat just behind former heavyweight champ Lennox Lewis and HBO?s Boxing After Dark broadcast crew.
Gabi looked like someone just hit him with a tire iron, but you should have seen the other guy, Joe Beranza, who had more than his fair share of licks.
Michael Domingo was a huge underdog over knockout artist Miguel Roman, but the ALA fighter, showing both guts and guile, pulled a stunning upset and won on all scorecards.
AJ Banal, the pride of Ermita, Cebu, was quite a revelation. I now know what Freddie Roach meant when he told me ?this kid is really good.?
Banal TKO?d Jorge Cardenas in round 3, and fractured the poor Mexican?s ankle along the way. AJ?s slate moved north to 14-0, with 11 KOs.
Hands down, Z Gorres is the most fundamentally-sound pug in the ALA stable. The lefty from Mandaue toyed with ex-word champ Eric Ortiz to win the IBF inter-continental title.
Ortiz, bruised and beaten and cut badly, was ruled unfit to continue by the ringside physician. Gorres won by TKO in 8 and his record improved to 26-2 (14 KOs).
Gerry Pe?alosa recorded the upset of the year when the 35-year old from San Carlos City snatched the WBO bantamweight crown from Jhonny Gonzales. A perfect shot to the liver did the trick in the 7th round.
The Arco Arena crowd was thin, just over 4,700. But their passion was thick.
They waved Mexican and Filipino flags all night. They cheered lustily, unabashedly. When Gonzales kept running from Gerry early in the fight, a Filipino-American man who sat at ringside row behind my media seat yelled: ?Run Jhonny, run!! Bring your belt with you.!!?
It was easily the most amusing moment I had all night.
But watching Boom-Boom fall in the first round against Daniel Ponce De Leon wasn?t amusing.
Well, we won the World Cup with the flair of world-class athletes. I?m proud and happy for all our boxers, who trained like Marines for over two months at the Wild Card Gym with Freddie Roach.
I still wish Boom-Boom had won. But he lost to a better fighter, a great champion.
Time heals all wounds. At 21, Boom has all that time. He just needs to be patient, to wait for his moment to shine. (Homer D. Sayson)
