After frustrating efforts to get some of the boxers of the Braveheart Boxing Club to train under more experienced coaches, including Hall of Famer Freddie Roach, seven boxers from North Cotabato took the long trip from Mindanao to temporarily relocate in Binangonan, Rizal yesterday to train under upcoming Filipino trainer Aljo Jaro.
The group includes former world title challengers Lorenzo ?Thunderbolt? Villanueva, Edrin ?The Sting? Dapudong and Rommel ?Little Assassin? Asenjo who all lost in their separate attempts to win world championship titles.
Also in the group are junior featherweights Rolando Magbanua, who is recovering from a torn elbow tendon, and Ronnie ?Baby Faced Destroyer? Apilado, flyweight Ryan Rae Ponteras and featherweight Rey Juntilla.
The decision to send the seven boxers to Jaro came as a result of my unsuccessful efforts to get the boxers travel papers to be able to train in the US with Freddie Roach and in Australia under Angelo Hyder.
It is also an admission that the level of competence of our homegrown trainers could not yet handle the fine-tuning of very raw and awkward fighters like Villanueva who squandered what could have been a won fight against Indonesia?s Daud Yordan in Singapore last May 5.
Villanueva, 26, who was fighting for the IBO featherweight title, sent Yordan to the canvas crumpling like an empty sack but wasted all his energy throwing haymakers which missed. He in turn was stopped by the badly hurt former Olympian in the second round.
There is one basic flaw in the fighting style of the boys from North Cotabato which makes them vulnerable to their more stylish opponents: they stand up straight in front of their opponents and are willing to take punches just to be able to connect.
The selection of Jaro as supervising trainer for the Braveheart boxers came after I viewed the last fight of WBC Silver Miniflyweight Champion Denver Cuello in Mexico.
I was impressed by the movement and the offense-defense posture of Cuello and I felt that if the boys from North Cotabato could move and fight like him, some of them could become world champions.
I was able to appreciate the transformation of Cuello because I saw him as a young fighter. He lost to one of my boxers by decision before, Tommy Terado, who later continued his college education.
Back then, Cuello was as raw as the Braveheart boxers now.
Seeing him in his last action in Mexico, I concluded that Aljo Jaro was able to transform him into a mean and deadly fighting machine and that is a testament to the capability of this former boxer, turned trainer, manager and promoter, to fine-tune raw fighters into world caliber boxers.
Added to that is the fact that Jaro turned a journeyman, Sonny Boy Jaro, into a world champion. Not just a world flyweight champion but a super world champion having ended the career of legendary Thai boxing hero Pongsaklek Wongjongkam.
I have asked Jaro to develop the lateral movements in the Braveheart boxers and teach them Freddie Roach?s concept of active defense, in contrast to the commonly seen passive defense used by most Filipino boxers.
Roach?s active defense concept calls for a fighter to counter an attack with defense and offense. This is in contrast with the common practice of most fighters who assume a closed-shell position when attacked and wait for the offense to end before launching a counter attack.
After a month with Jaro, the Braveheart boxers will see action again and observations will be made on whether they have improved or not.
Those who will show no improvement will be asked to reconsider their decision to take up the sport of boxing.
This is the sad but realistic duty of a boxing manager: to identify which of his boxers has the chance of making it big and those whose mediocrity could only lead them to risks and injury inside the ring.
Hopefully, Aljo Jaro will be able to help me separate the grain from the chaff.
