By Ronnie Nathanielsz
The WBO continues on its dubious path of creating belts at the drop of a hat and arranging title and interim title fights in what appears to be a mad scramble to make as much money as possible from sanction fees.
The announcement that Jorge Arce, the reigning WBO junior bantamweight champion, will face Cecilio “Boga” Santos in a WBO bantamweight eliminator with the winner to fight Eric Morel for the title, indicates a callous disregard for the rights of legitimate challengers and a serious undermining of its own ratings and basic rules which world organizations should adhere to.
Morel who has been chasing Fernando Montiel for a title fight for years won a close but controversial split decision over veteran Filipino southpaw and former two division champion Gerry Penalosa at the Las Vegas Hilton last February 13 in what was billed as a title eliminator. The winner was supposed to fight the winner of the pathetic mismatch between Montiel and Ciso “Kid Terrible” Morales of the Philippines who was knocked out in the very first round.
Here again, in a sordid manipulation which we suspect was done by Asia Pacific region head Leon Panoncillo, a good friend and partner of Filipino promoter Sammy Gello-ani, Morales who fought the last two years as a super bantamweight inexplicably emerged as No. 5 ranked bantamweight and got the title shot at Montiel. The tragedy was that Morales had to lose 12 pounds in 6 days and virtually starved himself to death to make the bantamweight limit. Nothing has been heard of “Kid Terrible” since the terrible beating he suffered.
The promise at that time was for the winner of the Morel-Montiel eliminator to face WBO bantamweight champion Fernando “Cochulito” Montiel for the title. However, Montiel has apparently ignored the WBO commitment and will instead face Japan’s WBC bantamweight champion Hozumi Hasegawa on April 30 in Tokyo.
The Japan Boxing Commission secretary general informed us that the JBC does not recognize the WBO so Montiel’s title will not be on the line and there had been no official word as yet from the WBO whether it plans to strip Montiel of the title. But the announcement of the Arce-Santos eliminator indicated that Morel will face the winner for the title.
This is where the dubious activities of the WBO are clearly evident.
Santos suffered a 4th round knockout at the hands of Filipino southpaw AJ “Bazooka” Banal last January 14 in a fight card at the plush Ballroom of the Waterfront Hotel in Cebu City. In his next fight Santos was knocked out in the 4th round of an eight round bout by Rico Ramos in a battle for the WBO North American Boxing Organization Youth super bantamweight title last March 5.
The irony of this supposedly youth title fight was that Santos is 31 and he fought a 22 year old and got knocked out halfway through the fight. Now, in the warped assessment of the WBO Santos is deserving of facing Arce in a title eliminator a mere 49 days after suffering his second successive knockout.
Meantime Banal who is rated No. 3 in the latest rankings of the WBO has been completely overlooked and Santos who is not rated at all either as a bantamweight or a super bantam is given a shot in a title eliminator.
While we recognize that the 30 year old Arce is a warrior in the ring, 30 he has clearly seen better days especially when we recall the battering he received at the hands of Vic Darchinyan, the WBC/WBA super flyweight champion in February last year.
Arce adds to the travesty by saying “I expect a very tough fight from Santos” who in turn said the fight against Arce on April 27 will open the door for another title opportunity and I would like to be a world champion before I end my professional career.”
They must be kidding.
