Cebu Boxing 2014

Cebu Boxing in 2014 will be remembered as the year that history was made,  a couple of ironical twists, and the continued rise of Cebu as the country’s center of boxing. The bar has been raised for Cebu Boxing and all talk is always at the world or international level with zero talk about local champions and rankings.

The biggest news is Donnie Nietes breaking the record of Gabriel “Flash” Elorde as the world champion with the longest reign as a world champion. After defeating Carlos Velarde of Mexico last month, Nietes is set to break the record when the year 2014 is up. He has been a world champion for over seven years and seeks to prolong his reign in 2015. He won the WBO minimumweight championship in 2007, gave it up, then won the WBO light flyweight division championship in 2011.  He has been busy defending his belt since then, remaining undefeated, and may move up to the flyweight division next year. Next up is another title defense in Macau in February. Nietes, who was once a simple janitor at the ALA Gym has ironically become the ALA Gym’s poster boy and role model, earning his feat away from the limelight of his more popular stablemates.

The other historical development and major breakthrough has been ALA Promotions going overseas; putting up a Pinoy Pride event in Dubai. World class boxing has always been its standard for all its events, and it has now brought its show overseas. The Dubai card was a big success and talks are ripe that another trip to Dubai will be made in 2015. Also on standby is a Pinoy Pride in the United States where ALA Promotions was been granted a promoter’s license in the state of California. This is a first for Pinoy boxing and we may be seeing this in the middle of 2015. The proud feeling here is that Pinoy Pride is no longer something Cebuano. It’s now world-class in every sense of the word. From Cebu to the world!

We also have to accept that 2014 wasn’t a good year for our other Cebu-based world champions. Both Merlito Sabillo and Johnriel Casimero lost their titles in contrasting fashion this year and will have to start all over again in their pursuit of another world crown. Sabillo lost his WBO minimumweight championship to Francisco Rodriguez via knock-out, while Casimero lost his belt on the scales when he couldn’t make the weight at his title defense in May. The good news here is that Casimero won an IBF world title eliminator fight in the flyweight division last week, scoring a second round TKO win over Armando Santos in Mexico. He’s now back on track for a crack at the title of IBF flyweight champion Amnat Ruenroeng of Thailand. Another failed attempt at a world title was Rocky Fuentes bowing to WBC flyweight champion Roman Gonzales via KO. He also lost to Ruenrong in an IBF flyweight title fight.

The other piece of good news is that we have world champion prospects who should be getting shots at world titles: Genesis Servania and Milan Melindo. The undefeated Servania has been active in defending his WBO Intercontinental super bantamweight title and has been tabbed to fight for the interim WBO super bantamweight title some time in the first quarter of 2015. He was also a WBO Asia Pacific super bantamweight championship along the way. Meanwhile, Melindo has gone down to the light flyweight division this year after campaigning as a flyweight. He won his IBF title eliminator fight last month against Saul Juarez and will be lined up for a title fight against IBF light flyweight champion Javier Mendoza in 2015.

Others who were dubbed  as world title prospects this year include Arthur Villanueva and the  Pagara brothers Jason and Albert. However, Team ALA has no plans of rushing them into world championship fights until they’re ripe, ripped and ready. Jason remains to be the WBO International super lightweight champion, but may not yet be at the world top ten level with all those tough Mexicans and Americans in the 140-pound division. Albert won the IBF Inter-Continental super bantamweight title last November, and is slowly but surely making his presence felt in the international scene. On the other hand, Villanueva has slowed down somewhat this year, coming off a win that nearly turned into a loss last March, and a split decision win in Dubai. Both fights showed that Villanueva will have to work on some aspects of his game before he can be considered for a shot at a world title. Another regional champion is WBO Asia Pacific bantamweight champion Marlon Tapales of the Rex “Wakee” Salud stable. He defended his belt and is currently ranked #3 by the WBO. I’m sure some fans are asking about boxers like AJ Banal and Boom Boom Bautista. Are they still world class boxers with a realistic chances of winning the big one? Let’s put it this way. They were better off winning fights and earning a living this year.

While our boxers continued to make us proud, Cebu’s boxing officials also stood out in their craft. We now have boxing officials from Cebu assigned to work the fights in Macau and China, under the guidance of Leon Panoncillo, WBO’s Asia Vice Chairman and now China Boxing’s big boss. Not only has he shown how it’s done from the technical side and running of a boxing event from a regulations side. He has also brought in  a crew from Cebu to assist him in all those fights in China and Macau. If you take a closer look at those boxing officials at ringside of the Macau and China fights, many of them are from Cebu.

Cebu Boxing 2014 has thus become a holistic development that has made Cebu the hotbed of boxing followed by others. We now have boxers, promoters and officials showing off their stuff not only in Cebu but overseas as well. Now that’s Pinoy Pride too, all from Cebu.

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Time-out: Happy birthday to Hon. Venci del Mar of Naga.