Peñalosa decks Panamanian in ninth round

Comebacking Gerry Peñalosa yesterday showed why he deserves another crack at the world title by knocking out Mauricio Martinez of Panama in the ninth round of their super-bantamweight contest at the Don Haskins Center in El Paso, Texas.

The 34-year-old Peñalosa, the former World Boxing Council super-flyweight champion, was all over his opponent right from opening bell in scoring the sensational win that lined him up for a possible crack at the world title early next year.

Martinez, the former WBO champion and favored to prevail over Peñalosa, went down in the first round, and again in the fourth before he was finally put away in the 1:06 mark of the ninth round. He looked stunned taking the loss.

Peñalosa opened a cut on Martinez’s right eye in the third round and also scored repeatedly with his right hooks.

Peñalosa, whose career seemed to have ended when he absorbed a controversial loss to Japan’s Masamori Tokuyama in 2004, has now won two in a row following a 10-round decision over gritty Mexican Tomas Rojas last July at the Araneta Coliseum.

All the hard work over the last couple of months under trainer Freddie Roach is bearing fruit for Peñalosa, now fighting under the banner of Golden Boy Promotions.

Peñalosa said he hurt his left hand in decking Martinez in the opening round of the scheduled 10-dounder. But he managed to keep the pain to himself and send his opponent down in the fourth round.

Now he deserves some rest.

"I will enjoy a brief vacation with my family but I will return to training camp soon, maybe before the end of the year. I might get the chance to challenge for the world title and that depends on my manager (Roach) and promoter (Golden Boy Promotions)," he said.

Aside from the victory, Peñalosa stands to receive some cash bonus from Manny Pacquiao, who had a hand in convincing Peñalosa to stage a comeback.

While training at the Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles, Peñalosa stayed at Pacquiao’s $4,000-a-month apartment. Pacquiao watched the fight from LA via pay-per-view.

Martinez also suffered a first-round knockdown against Franklin Varela last May, but went on to win the fight. Against Peñalosa, however, he didn’t have the power and the will to move on.

Martinez lost his WBO bantamweight crown to Thailand’s Ratanachai Sor Vorapin last year. Peñalosa and Vorapin met in 2000 and the Filipino heavy hitter scored a ninth-round TKO to keep his WBC International super-flyweight title.

Peñalosa rose to 51-5-2 with 34 knockouts while Martinez, younger at 31, fell to 31-7-1 with 21 KO’s.

Eric Gomez of Golden Boy Promotions had said that a good showing by Peñalosa against Martinez could line him up toward a shot at the world championship.

Peñalosa fought in the undercard of the Daniel Ponce de Leon vs Al Seeger with the former scoring an eight-round stoppage and staying on as WBO bantamweight champion.