LAS VEGAS – Arriving here in the US just a week before his first big foreign test, Jimrex Jaca of the Rex “Wakee” Salud was supposed to struggle with jetlag. Instead, it was an unsuspecting opponent who couldn’t overcome the power of Jaca’s attack.
Jaca, a native of Sibulan, Negros Oriental, left a trail of destruction at the Thomas and Mack Center here, scoring an impressive first-round knockout of the unheralded Geronimo Hernandez.
The stoppage came in the 2:43 count of the opening round as Jaca landed a left straight flush on the Mexican’s mug.
“I’m so excited,” Jaca told Sun.Star Cebu last night. He got a glimpse of celebrity as a pro-Filipino crowd embraced and adored him inside the Thomas and Mack Center as Jaca made the rounds.
The 130-pound campaigner rose to 25-1 (11 KOs), while Hernandez slipped to 15-15-1. Jaca’s next scheduled fight is sometime in February in the undercard of the Bobby Pacquiao fight.
Days before the fight, representatives of a soon-to-be-opened Casino in Las Vegas offered Jimrex $10,000 in exchange for wearing a hat and shirt that prominently displayed the said hotel’s colors.
Salud was tempted to take the dough for the sake of Jaca, but they declined because the people form Wynn Resort surely wouldn’t be happy seeing another casino getting some advertisement mileage after it paid $5 million for the Pacquiao-Morales rematch.
