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Ceferino Garcia and Manny Pacquiao, Asia's All Time Best at Higher Weights By Teodoro Medina Reynoso PhilBoxing.com Fri, 11 Oct 2019  Garcia (L) and Pacquiao. Cipriano aka Ceferino Garcia and Emmanuel aka Manny Pacquiao hold the distinction for being the first Filipino and Asian fighters to win world titles in boxing's heavier divisions. They are still considered as the all time best fighters from the region to have campaigned in the middleweight and welterweight classes respectively as no other Asians have come close to duplicating their feats as recognized true world champions in those legitimately original divisions. Ceferino 'The Bolo Puncher' Garcia, after campaigning without much luck in the welterweights for much of his career, won the world middleweight championship in October 1939 by stopping American defending titleholder Fred Apostoli in New York. Garcia made two successful defenses of the 160 lbs division crown, stopping fierce archrival Glen Lee in the 14th round of a highly memorable bout in a rain-soaked arena in Manila two days before Christmas in 1939 and holding his former welterweight conqueror, the great Henry 'Homicidal Hank' Armstrong to a draw in March 1940. He lost the crown in May 1940 on points to another American Ken Overlin, recently inducted to the Hall of Fame, with the war in Europe and North Africa threatening to expand to Asia and the Pacific forcing him to stay in the US permanently, until his death in 1981. 
Ceferino Garcia. No ethnic Asian would win another world championship in the middleweight division until Japanese former Olympic champion Ryota Murata defeated Hassan NDam NJikam but only for the then WBA regular title in 2017. Murata had earlier lost to NDam for the same then vacant title. After a successful defense against Emmanuel Blandamura, Murata lost the title on points to American Rob Brant but regained it recently against the same Brant via TKO in their rematch. Gennady Golovkin of Kazakhstan was the universally recognized middleweight champion until his defeat to current Mexican sensation Canelo Alvarez last year. Kazakhstan is largely in central Asia and partly in Europe but for most of the last century was part of the old Soviet Union which was regarded as a European power. Golovkin is also more of Russian descent. For the record, there were other ethnic Asians who won world titles above the welterweights and the middleweights like Japanese Koichi Wajima, Tadashi Mihara and Musashi Kudo and South Koreans Kim Ki Soo, in Chul Baek and Chong Pal Park But with the exception of Kim and Wajima who reigned as lineal super welterweight champions in the late 60s and 70s respectively, the rest never attained full recognition at 154 lbs and 168 lbs. in the 70s and the 80s. Manny 'Pacman' Pacquiao, on the other hand rose from light flyweight to win world titles in record eight weight divisions including in the junior middleweight or 154 lbs. before settling down at welterweight where he is currently the WBA super champion of the division. Manny is the first and only Filipino or Asian for that matter to win and reign as world champion in the 147 lbs. division. The nearest that an Asian came to a world championship in the weight class was when Ceferino Garcia himself fought and lost on points against Barney Ross and later Henry Armstrong in failed title attempts in the early to mid 1930s. Fil American creole Bernard Docusen also sternly challenged Sugar Ray Robinson for the world welterweight title but lost steam in the later rounds and dropped a decision defeat in the late 1940s. In the more recent years, South Korean then OPBF welterweight champion Jun Sok Hwang vied for one of the world titles vacated by Sugar Ray Leonard in 1983 but was narrowly defeated by American Donald Curry. Hwang would later beat former world titlist Pipino Cuevas and fight for the world super welterweight crown losing to Gilbert Dele of France. 
Pacquiao drops Cotto. Manny won his first title at welterweight ten years ago in 2009, stopping Miguel Cotto to wrest the WBO crown. He defended it four times before losing it via highly disputed split decision to former undefeated super lightweight king Timothy 'Dessert Storm' Bradley in 2012. Manny eventually regained the title by unanimous decision over Bradley in 2013 and defended it against another American Chris Algieri by another unanimous decision after decking him six times during that bout held in Macau in 2014. After losing to American superstar Floyd Mayweather Jr in their title unification, in 2015 Pacquiao would return from injury to defeat Bradley again and regain the WBO crown by knocking down and widely outpointing then defending titlist Jessie Vargas in 2016. He would lose the same WBO title in a highly controversial upset decision to Australian challenger Jeff Horn in Melbourne in 2017 after which he went into a hiatus. Pacquiao made another of his epic comeback starting in July, 2018 knocking out defending Argentine titlist Lucas 'La Machina' Matthyse for the WBA regular welterweight crown in Kuala Lumpur. Manny defended the same title last January via imposing unanimous decision win over fellow former multi division world champion Adrien 'The Problem' Broner. Significantly, Manny won the super championship belt with a stirring Fight of the Year candidate split decision victory over the erstwhile undefeated Keith 'One Time' Thurman last July. Virtually fighting as welterweight since 2009, Pacquiao has thus far logged 13 wins as against four defeats, two of them highly disputed against Bradley and Horn in a total of 17 bouts. No other ethnic Asian has emerged to be as prominent and relatively successful as Ceferino Garcia had been at middleweight. And definitely none as hugely popular and accomplished in the welterweight as Senator Pacquiao in the past and even well into the future. Despite the emergence of a few world rated fighters from new Asian boxing power Uzbekistan. The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.  |
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