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Philippines, 20 Feb 2026 |
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Three Pinoy Fighters in Crucial Bouts This December By Teodoro Medina Reynoso PhilBoxing.com Thu, 28 Nov 2024  L-R: Paciones, Llover and Palicte. Three Filipino fighters will end the year in crucial pivotal bouts that would determine their prospects for 2025. World rated light flyweight Arvin Jhon Paciones, new hope Kenneth Llover and comebacking Aston Palicte both fighting at bantamweight, will see action in separate important bouts abroad which they hope to win to enhance or extend their respective pro boxing careers. The youthful Vietnam-based Paciones, currently the WBA Asia champion and WBC #2 contender, clashes against China's Xiang Li for the WBC Youth World and the vacant IBF Asia Pacific light flyweight championships in Bangkok, Thailand on December 26, 2024. The 19-year-old Paciones is undefeated in nine fights with five knockout wins while Xiang has nine wins, four by KO, two losses and two draws. Being based in Vietnam, Paciones has only fought against two fellow Pinoys namely Rene Mark Cuarto who he defeated on points in his last bout and Jonathan Refugio whom he stopped in six rounds for the WBA Asia title in Ho Chi Minh City. On the other hand, the two losses of the 26-year-old Xiang were inflicted by Filipinos, Miel Fajardo and Jonathan Almacen, both on points. Xiang is therefore aiming for revenge but the tall 5-7 Paciones will be going for another impressive win that will improve further his chance to vie for the vacant WBC light flyweight crown left by Japan's Kenshiro Teraji, now WBC flyweight titlist. Meanwhile undefeated new bantam hope Kenneth Llover (12-0-0, 7 KOs) clashes against Japan's Tulio Dekanarudo (8-2-2, 4 KOs) for the OPBF interim bantamweight championship on December 15, 2024 in Osaka, Japan. Llover is coming off a points win over Chenchen Yang and also a points win over Edward Heno last year. The Osaka born Dekanarudo rebounded with a recent win over Ryota Muito after a TKO loss to Toshiki Shimomichi for the Japanese super bantamweight title. He had earlier lost by KO to Ken Jordan in 2018. Llover, with Harlan Gomez, now form the spearhead of the Philippines in the bantamweights with the inactivity and possible retirement of Nonito Donaire and crushing defeats in 2024 of Jonas Sultan, Reymart Gaballo, Vincent Astrolabio and Jerwin Ancajas. Finally, Aston Palicte hopes to bounce back and avoid falling to the journeyman category as he tangles with undefeated US-based Japanese bantamweight Katsuma Akitsugi (11-0-0, 2 KOs) in the main support bout at the ProBox TV Event Center in Plant City, Florida, USA on December 11, 2024. The career of Palicte (28-6-2, 23 KOs) had fallen in the past five years after a surge that saw him held to draw then WBO super flyweight champion Donnie 'Ahas' Nietes in 2018. Palicte gained a rematch with Nietes following a KO win against a South American in another world eliminator. But Nietes opted to vacate his title than meet Aston again. Palicte fought Kazuto Ioka for the vacant title but was stopped in the later rounds. He was upset by Renz Rosia in his comeback fight. He won his succeeding two local fights. But Palicte lost his two succeeding bouts by TKO abroad, the most telling was to Australia's Jason Moloney for regional bantamweight title in 2022. Last year he lost by another stoppage to Jose Salas Reyes in the US and fell to a long inactivity. Aston is trying to get back into win column at the expense of Akitsugi. 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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