'Hands of Stone' from Barbados confident of dethroning Pagara

CEBU, Philippines - Miguel Antoine, a native of Bridgetown, Barbados, has reached an agreement with ALA Promotions to challenge one of its prized wards Jason “El Niño” Pagara for the WBO International light welterweight title.

Antoine, unscathed in 18 fights spiced up with a 50 percent knockout rate, is expected to pose quite a challenge as he is naturally athletic and young like the pride of Cagayan de Oro City.

Given the monicker “Hands of Stone”, Antoine (17-0-1, 9KOs) possesses and packs a mean punch as reflected on the official records with nine of his victims not going past the fifth round and six of those did not go past the second round. For sure, Pagara will be a difficult puzzle to solve for the visiting Antoine as Pagara has gained renewed confidence after disposing of his former tormentor Rosbel Montoya of Mexico via crowd-pleasing stoppage last August.

However, the current WBC Carribean Boxing Federation titlist who will be fighting for the first time in foreign soil is quite confident, believing that they have enough knowledge and power to overcome the champion and take away the title from Pagara.

The Pagara-Antoine rumble is one of the three championship bouts that will be featured in the "Pinoy Pride XVII:Philippines vs. The World” on October 20 at the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.

In the main event, AJ “Bazooka” Banal of the Philippines and Pungluang Sorsingyu of Thailand will slug it out for the WBO bantamweight crown.

The slambang card presented by ALA Promotions and ABS-CBN Sports also marks the return of Rey “Boom Boom” Bautista, who is set to lock up horns with Daniel Ruiz of Mexico for the WBO International featherweight belt. (FREEMAN)