All is quiet on Filipino challenger Marlon Tapales’ front.
But it doesn’t mean the heavy-handed southpaw is not killing himself in training as he revs up for his two-belt world title clash with Uzbekistan’s Murodkon Akhmadaliev on 8 April in San Antonio, Texas.
“I am tapering off,” Tapales said on Wednesday from his Las Vegas training camp.
Tapales’ upcoming fight is a novelty.
Instead of shooting for just one world crown, he is gunning for two.
Akhmadaliev holds the World Boxing Association and International Boxing Federation 122-lb straps.
“This is a chance of a lifetime,” he said.
This is the reason why Tapales is going the extra mile in his buildup for the feared and formidable Central Asian puncher.
Akhmadaliev sports an 11-0 win-loss card with eight knockouts while Tapales totes a 36-3 ledger with 19 knockouts.
This will be Akhmadaliev’s fourth defense of the twin titles he had won in early 2020.
Though the less experienced compared with Tapales, Akhmadaliev is the betting favorite, something the mandatory challenger from Mindanao will use as a huge motivation to score an upset.
“He’s good but I won’t be going up the ring just to provide a good fight, I am coming to win,” Tapales said.
Team Tapales—made up of trainers Ting Ariosa and Ernel Fontanila and the dynamic father-and-son tandem of Sean and Brendan Gibbons–leaves for San Antonio on 4 April.
