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Philippines, 22 Feb 2026 |
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Edward Heno hits LA ahead of his WBO title fight versus Elwin Sotto By Ed de la Vega, DDS PhilBoxing.com Mon, 07 Oct 2019  Heno (C) with Dr Ed de la Vega (L). We have to hand it to Sean Gibbons, the new president of the Manny Pacquiao Promotions. Gibbons, to say the least knows how to handle the MP fighters. Take for instance, Edward Heno (14-0-5,5KO) the light flyweight prot?g?e of Martin Elorde of Paranaque City. Heno is the current Orient Pacific Boxing Federation (OPBF) light flyweight champion. He has successive wins lately including an impressive win over former world champion, Merlito Sabillo the ex-ALA boxer formerly based in Cebu. Sabillo is not a fly-by-night champion. He was a skillful fighter albeit not like the ALA prized boxer, former world champion, Donnie Nietes. But, Sabillo is a warrior. I know as I worked his corner when he fought in Monterey, Mexico. Sean Gibbons covers all the bases when he sends MP fighters to fight, locally or abroad. Before he flew to Manila last week, he asked for a special favor for Edward Heno. Heno apparently is in need of a cutman when he fights Elwin Soto (15-1-0,11KO) for the WBO Light flyweight belt on October 24th at the Fantasy Springs Casino at Indio, California under the auspices of the Golden Boy Promotions. Gibbons with the consent of Martin Elorde requested me to work as cutman for Heno. Of course I accepted. How can I reject an opportunity to help a fellow Filipino win a world title? These opportunities don?t come up too often and I know exactly the priceless feeling of seeing your fighter win, much like when I worked the corner of Senator Manny Pacquiao at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Donnie Nietes many times. Besides, Heno?s need for a reliable cutman, he also needs a great mouthguard to replace the ?boil and bite? mouthpiece he currently uses. But there was one issue. Heno and his trainers need to be in Las Vegas by Monday afternoon after keeping a medical appointment at San Pedro, CA for the required medical checkup and paper work for the fight. They arrived in LA Sunday at noon thus leaving him only Sunday afternoon to get his mouthguard done. Thus Gibbons asked if I could accommodate Heno on a Sunday afternoon. My reply to Gibbons was this- "send him over to my offices straight from the LAX and I will make him a custom mouthguard in three hours?. True enough Coach Ting Arriosa of Team Pacquiao, picked up Heno and his coach, Roel Durano and drove them straight from LAX to my Canoga Park, CA offices, a 21.61-mile drive. They arrived a little after 1:00 PM and by 3:30 PM Heno had his custom designed, fabricated and fitted mouthguard done. The mouthguard has four colors, red, white, blue and yellow depicting the colors of the Philippine flag. ?I will wear this proudly and hopefully, like the ones you made for Donnie Nietes when he won the same belt I am going after, I will win and bring pride to myself, my family and the country,? Heno stated. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ed de la Vega, DDS.  |
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