THE AFRICAN fighter whom Roland Navarrete had stopped and dethroned in Italy feels Manny Pacquiao would win his next big fight in Las Vegas because he’s “quick like a lightning strike.”
Cornelius Boza Edwards, knocked out by the ?Bad Boy from Dadiangas? for the world junior lightweight boxing title in 1981, dropped by at the Wild Card Gym yesterday and left profuse with praises for Pacquiao.
He noted that Pacquiao packs a similarly lethal left hand like Navarrete’s.
“He’s also a strong, sharp puncher, and definitely much, much quicker than Navarrete,” Edwards, bubbly and fit, said of Pacquiao.
He said the Pacquiao-Morales encounter should be very interesting but stressed the Filipino boxing hero would be very hard to contain.
“The other guy is taller but the speed and accuracy of your guy is phenomenal,” said Edwards. “I mean he’s like a lightning strike, he’s got that terrific hand-speed of the southpaw.”
He said southpaws are very confusing, as attested by his fall against Navarrete.
“You look at them, you try to figure them out, then you get hit, bang!” Edwards tried to explain in awe.
But isn’t Erik Morales supposed to be very seasoned, more skillful?
“Yeah, but don’t forget, Morales is a guy who wants to get involved in a war, similar to what I was.”
What would you advice Morales, instead?
“I would tell him to run, run and eventually figure out Pacquiao. Problem. Pacquiao is very hard to figure out. That’s why Barrera got into trouble. He was sizing up Manny then, bang! He was down.”
Edwards, father to three daughters and running a boxing gym in Las Vegas, has a half-Filipina fighter, bantamweight Elena Reid, 16-1, whom he wanted to take to Manila.
Looking back, he said they had underestimated Navarrete, not knowing he packed a killer left hand.
Indeed, he has heard many stories about Navarrete, sad and very disturbing tales.
“The fight game needs good guys like Pacquiao,” Edwards added. “I hope many guys like Pacquiao come along to represent the Philippines.”
You don’t want Navarrete’s bad habits, he said.
Nobody needs a bad role model, Boza Edwards stressed.
