GERRY Pe?alosa swore he could have been an even greater fighter if he had already known what Freddie Roach taught at the end of his boxing clinic yesterday.
A select horde of boxing people, trainers, managers, boxers, devotees of the sport, gave Roach, the 2003 trainer of the year, an ovation and clamored for his return to Manila to continue helping improve RP boxing.
“I sure will be back,” Roach told his admirers, who later formed a long line to get his signature and also have their picture taken with the man who molded Manny Pacquiao into one of the world’s hottest boxing celebrities.
Pe?alosa who, together with top super flyweight Z Gorres, helped Roach demonstrate various techniques, said he’s now doubly sure of beating world super bantamweight king Rafael Marquez after learning more from Roach.
Main beneficiaries of the two-day clinic, organized by lawyer-sportsman Rudy Salud and sponsored by the Philippine Sportswriters Association with support from the Philippine Sports Commission, were the members of the RP national amateur boxing stable whose coaches and fighters attended the two-day clinic at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.
Of great help in the demonstration was PBL commissioner Chino Trinidad, himself a boxing student, who interpreted Roach’s brilliant pointers for the benefit of the participants who later got their certificates of attendance.
The two-day clinic, a dream of Salud, the founding secretary general of the WBC, could be expanded because there are plans to have Roach stay in the country longer in his next visit.
Ronnie Nathanielsz, who helped organize the clinic together with Rhea Navarro and Queenie Evangelista, said he would look for sponsors and project directors to have Roach hold a longer, more expansive clinic in the future.
