Arum Assures That Juanma vs. Penalosa Fight is On

By Ronnie Nathanielsz

The concern over WBO bantamweight champion Gerry Penalosa’s failure to receive a contract for his planned April 25 super bantamweight title fight against Juan Manuel “Juanma” Lopez has been cleared up by Top Rank promoter Bob Arum who first announced the fight some time ago in a conversation with Standard Today.

Arum  assured BoxingScene.com, insidesports.ph, Standard Today and Viva Sports that the fight is on and that  he had sent a contract to Golden Boy Promotions which handles Penalosa because the fight was negotiated with GBP CEO Richard Schaefer. He admitted not sending a contract to Penalosa’s manager Billy Keane who has expressed concern over what was going on.

He said he “sent the contract last week to Golden Boy and they now have to do a contract with Penalosa.” Arum said he had spoken to Golden Boy  Promotions vice president and international matchmaker Eric Gomez and told us “he promised to get right to it.”

Arum said it was a good thing that people in the US didn’t see the Penalosa tune-up fight against Mexican German Meraz which was a boring affair with Meraz running away during the ten-round bout and refusing to engage the veteran world champion.

He said Penalosa “doesn’t have to worry about “Juanma” Lopez because he likes to fight” and would be the aggressor which will suit Penalosa whose counter-punching ability is his forte. 

When informed of our conversation with Arum, Penalosa was relieved and said he plans to leave for Los Angeles in the middle of March to pick up the tempo of his training for the Lopez title fight.

His worry was that trainer Freddie Roach was training Manny Pacquiao for the Ricky Hatton fight on May 2 and Amir Khan for his clash with Mexican legend Marco Antonio Barrera on March 14 and may not have the time to train him.

However, Penalosa said he is hoping that Roach will find time because he wanted Roach to also be in his corner for the fight saying he lost by a twelve round unanimous decision to then WBO super bantamweight champion  Daniel Ponce De Leon because Roach was “not in my corner.”