On February 13th an interesting world championship doubleheader will take place at the Las Vegas Hilton when Nonito ‘The Filipino Flash’ Donaire defends his WBA interim super bantamweight title against power punching Gerson Guerrero, with WBO bantamweight champion Fernando Montiel defending against Ciso Morales. Also on the card is an intriguing WBO bantamweight title eliminator between former champions Eric Morel and Gerry Penalosa.
Speaking earlier today inside of the Hilton at the official press conference to announce the card, Bob Arum seemed overjoyed for a plethora of reasons. While Arum went on to talk about the great respect he has for the fighters on the card as well as the impact that Filipino pugilists have had over the years, the veteran promoter was sure to also point out the deep and storied history that his promotional outfit Top Rank has had with the Hilton.
Then known as the International, the Hilton presented the first ever boxing card ever to be held at a Las Vegas casino on December 6th, 1969 with a card headlined by former world champion Sonny Liston. Also on the card was a 20-year old George Foreman, still fresh into his professional career and just a year removed from winning an Olympic Gold medal. Nine years later Top Rank promoted the first world championship fight to ever take place in a Las Vegas casino venue when Leon Spinks upset Muhammad Ali at the Hilton on February 15th, 1978.
Elaborating further as the press conference rolled on, Arum claimed that staging another card at the Hilton was a ‘nostalgic moment’ for him, one in which he took a great deal of pride from. Arum also went to point out the storied history that the Hilton has had within the sport, playing host to memorable fighters such as Mike Tyson, Julio Cesar Chavez, as well as legendary bouts such as the first Michael Carbajal-Humberto ‘Chiquita’ Gonzalez tussle and the back and forth battle between Thomas Hearns and Iran Barkley in June of 1988.
As the years have gone by so too has the sport evolved and today’s presser had a very different feel to it. The card’s star attraction, Donaire, has been hearing whispers of a potential rematch with Vic Darchinyan but first he must get by Guerrero, who has won 76% of his bouts by knockout. Donaire was the first man to defeat Darchinyan and the only one to ever stop the Armenian and it is a fight that the public is dying to see again. Let’s hope Nonito can keep the ball rolling on the 13th.
The Morel-Penalosa bout is an interesting clash of styles, pitting the Filipino’s poised attack against Morel’s boxing skills. Morel won his first world title in 2000 by decisioning defending champion Sornpichai Pisnurachank and had a three year reign that included five successful defenses. Penalosa had a great comeback story in 2007 when he stopped Jhonny Gonzalez with a well timed body shot to become the WBO bantamweight champion. He recently lost a hard battle to Juan Manuel Lopez and a fight with Morel is considered ‘do or die’ at this point in his career.
On February 13th the spotlight will also be shining heavily on Fernando Montiel, who had some serious trouble in his last fight with Alejandro Valdez. Despite dropping his taller foe early in the first with an uppercut, Montiel would be dropped himself and appeared to be in serious trouble thereafter. The bout was stopped after the third round when it was declared that Montiel’s cut was too severe to allow him to continue. The bout originally declared a technical draw but was later changed to a TKO loss for Montiel. The Los Mochis native stated today that he wants to redeem himself from that performance and that he won’t leave any doubt when he faces Morales.
