Despair and loathing in Las Vegas
Romero Duno must be feeling despair and loathing for himself after falling like a flimsy banana plant in the path of a storm named Ryan Garcia at MGM Grand in Las Vegas on Sunday.
Garcia, a 21-year-old Mexican-American, landed a solid right to the Filipino’s temple at the 1:38 mark of the first round to claim the WBC Silver Youth lightweight title. The protégé of ring legend Oscar de la Hoya now sports an impressive record of 19-0, 16 knockouts.
Duno, 24, also among boxing’s young lions, saw his 12-fight winning skein end and dropped to 21-2 with 16 knockouts.
Garcia versus Duno was in the undercard of the Canelo Alvarez versus Sergey Kovalev world light heavyweight main event won by Alvarez.
A Cotabato City fighter, Duno was the fourth Filipino to lose in the United States over the weekend, putting the onus on Nonito Donaire Jr. to restore Filipino pride in world boxing.
As I write this, Donaire was to fight a dangerous Japanese foe on Thursday night. Naoya Inoue, 26, is 10 years younger than the four-division Pinoy champion and will be fighting at home in Saitama, Japan, for the bantamweight final of the World Boxing Championship Series.
As previously detailed by the Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines (Abap), our fighters will see action in all weight classes (eight male and five female) in the 30th Southeast Asian Games the Philippines is hosting late this month.
Abap executive director Edgar Picson reiterates that “there is no such thing as a cinch to make the team and every boxer will be looked at based on attitude, punctuality and overall behavior until D-Day.”
“Yes, the same criteria will be used in our selection for the Olympic qualifiers [in China and France in May],” according to Picson. “And the same boxers will be considered for the qualifiers.”
“As to the weight categories for the Olympic qualifiers, we intend to send boxers to the same weight classes except that with the women, there will only be five weight categories,” Picson said. “We should be able to send women entries in the fly, featherweight and lightweight classes there.”
The Abap’s list is made up of six female and 11 male fighters, all tested internationalists. The women are: light flyweight Josie Gabuco, flyweight Irish Magno, bantamweight Aira Villegas, featherweight Nesthy Petecio, and lightweights Riza Pasuit, Maricel de la Torre and Hergie Bacyadan.
The men are: light flyweight Carlo Paalam, flyweight Rogen Ladon, bantamweight Ian Clark Bautista, flyweight Marvin Tabamo, bantamweight Mario Fernandez, light welterweight James Palicte, lightweight Charly Suarez, welterweight Marjon Piañar, middleweight Eumir Felix Marcial and light heavyweight John Nobel Marvin.
