ALA fighters eye redemption

Davao City— The stunning losses of Philippine boxing’s “Big Three”— Manny Pacquiao, Brian Viloria and Nonito Donaire—has fired up ALA Gym boxers Rey ‘BoomBoom’ Bautista and Rocky ‘The Road Warrior’ Fuentes to train harder for their battles against Mexican boxers this Saturday in Davao City.

“That’s boxing, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose,” Bautista said, “It motivated us to train harder and we will raise our flag once again.”

“It did not discourage us,’ Fuentes added, ‘we will train harder than before so we can continue winning.”

Bautista (34W(25 KOs)- 2L), from Candijay, Bohol, will make the first defense of the WBO International featherweight title against Jose “Negro” Ramirez (24W (15 KOs)- 3L) in the main event of Pinoy Pride 19: Mexican Invasion at the USEP Gym. BoomBoom will also stake his world ranking as he is ranked No. 4 by the IBF and the WBO.

Ramirez will be fighting out of Mexico for the first time. “I have already invaded Davao and the Philippines. After beating Bautista, I will invade the world. I will be a world champion,” Ramirez vowed.

CONFIDENT

TRAINERS

ALA Gym trainer Edito Villamor and Mexican trainer Miguel Francisco Martinez Obeso both said that their boxers will have no problems making 126 lbs in today’s official weigh-in at SM City Davao.

Rocky Fuentes of Cebu City is set to face Juan ‘Loquito’ Kantun (20W (15 KOs)-3L-3D) of Yucatan in a 10-round non-title contest. Fuentes (34W(20 KOs)– 6L-2D), is the reigning OPBF flyweight champion, and is ranked in the top five by the WBO, WBA and WBC and No. 7 by the IBF.

Kantun, who bears a slight resemblance to Mexican legend Erik ‘El Terrible’ Morales, is the reigning WBC Youth superflyweight titlist. His trainer Gustavo Alberto Espadas Lopez, is the son and brother of former world champions Guty Espadas Senior and Junior.

Mark Vincent Bernaldez (9W-0L, 5 KOs) of the ALA Gym will replace Lorenzo Villanueva of the Braveheart Stable as the opponent of Indonesian Arief ‘The Ice’ Blader (17W-9L-1, 6 KOs). Villanueva was reported to have suffered an injury during training.

Bernaldez said that he will have no problems because he has already been training for a scheduled fight elsewhere.

SCENE STEALER

In a match that could possibly steal the show, OPBF super flyweight champion ‘King’ Arthur Villanueva (20W(11KOs)-0L) of the ALA Gym will defend his title against challenger Marco Demecillo (18W(14 KO’s)-0L-1D) of the RWS Gym. Both stated that they trained hard for this fight knowing that one will leave the ring with his first career loss.

‘This will be the first big boxing event in Davao since Manny Pacquiao fought here ten years ago,” ALA Promotions CEO Michael Aldeguer said. “We did not expect the support from the people of Davao and the media. This is the third highest Pinoy Pride event in terms of ticket sales.”

In 2002, fight fans in Davao saw Pacquiao, who was then IBF super bantamweight champion, blasting Thai challenger Fahprakorb Rakkiat-Gym into submission at 2:46 of the first round .

Completing the line-up for this April 20 card are Englebert Moralde vs. Abel Gayhun (6 rounds), John Vincent Moralde vs. Juvel Gayhun (6 rds), Kim Galon vs. Joselito Tabago (4 rds) and Glendon Ramos vs. Jessie Suacasa (4 rds).