In boxing slang, overmatched, journeymen boxers who promoters use to pad their prospect’s records are referred to as “tomato cans”, “bums”, and “tuk-tuk or taxi drivers”. When a champion loses his belt to these type of inferior opponents, people call it an upset. But when a champion loses his belt to a real taxi driver, it’s just simply a pain in the neck.
That’s the ordeal WBC Silver minimumweight champion Denver “The Excitement” Cuello recently went through when he left his belt inside a taxi cab after a TV appearance.
“I guested on Net 25, which is why I had to bring my belt. I fell asleep inside the taxi and I left my bag. I hope I can get my belt back, because I invested my blood and sweat for that. Even if they just return the belt… please,” Cuello said in an interview PTV Sports’ prolific reporter Snow Badua.
Luckily for the 25-year-old slugger who recently won a 12-round unanimous decision in Mexico against Ivan Meneses, the driver of the taxi wherein he left his bag is unlike Timothy Bradley – he returned the belt. Cab driver Pepito Sumalinog returned Cuello’s WBC minimumweight belt to a local radio station the day after the incident upon hearing about it in the news.
Video: Denver Cuello loses belt in a taxi cab
“Thank God there are taxi drivers who return things that people leave in their cabs,” Cuello said in thanking Sumalinog.
Cuello is set to challenge for the full WBC belt sometime in December or early next year against the winner of the WBC minimumweight title fight in China on Oct. 27 between Xiong Zhao Zong and Javier Martinez. Hopefully, he won’t lose his belt to another “taxi driver” then.
