PHOENIX, Arizona — Away from the Wild Card Boxing Club in Los Angeles, a popular hangout of Filipino fighters, former world champion Marlon Tapales religiously works out every single day in the hopes of getting another shot at the big time.
Tapales briefly held the World Boxing Organization (WBO) bantamweight title and was on the verge of getting that big break on American soil when he suffered an unexpected knockout loss last year.
Fighting under the MP Promotions banner, Tapales trains under a low-profile crew made up of ex-pro Ernel Fontanilla and Ting Ariosa, formerly a member of the Philippine amateur squad. Tapales arrived here from the Philippines last July and his handlers immediately got things in order.
They had him vaccinated right away so he gets shielded from the coronavirus and found himself already working out.
MP Promotions head Sean Gibbons is lining himself up for a key outing knowing a victory should position himself up for a possible shot at the world title.
“As of now, I have no confirmed date yet,” Tapales told Daily Tribune. “But I am in training mode because if the call comes, I will be ready. I don’t want to miss out on a chance to fight.”
Fontanilla supervises Tapales’s workouts alongside Ariosa at the Brickhouse Boxing Club in the North Hollywood area.
Tapales had won the WBO 118-lb crown in July 2016 in Ayutthaya but was stripped of the title after failing to make the weight in his first defense against Shohei Omori in Osaka in early 2017.
Though already crownless by the time he faced Omori, the southpaw Tapales won by stoppage.
Tapales then began the rebuilding stage by notching up three straight wins before running into a Japanese roadblock in Ryosuke Iwasa in Brooklyn in December 2019.
Since the Iwasa debacle, Tapales, who has a 34-3 record with 17 knockouts, has fought only once given the pandemic, halting compatriot Eden Sonsona in General Santos City in December 2020.
