By Ronnie Nathanielsz

 

Promising Ciso “Kid Terrible” Morales kept his unbeaten record intact with a unanimous points decision over Indonesia’s rugged Marangin Marbun before several thousand fight fans at the Mindanao Civic Center in Tubod, Lanao del Norte.

 

Staged by well-known promoter Sammy Gello-ani in cooperation with the respected Dimaporo family led by Gov. Khalid Dimaporo, Congressman Bobby Dimaporo and former Governor Imelda Dimapro, with the participation of  Lemuel “Bobong” Yap, the fights delighted fans because of exciting action.

 

Among those at special ringside were GAB chairman Eric Buhain who is now taking an active role in looking after the interest of our boxers and the sport itself and boxing division chief Dr. Nasser Cruz.

 

Morales who is scheduled to make his US debut on the March 15 undercard of “Unfinished Business” featuring Filipino ring idol Manny Pacquiao in a rematch with reigning WBC super featherweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez, displayed some of the skills that are expected to take him to a higher competitive level but needs to improve on his defense to begin with. Viva Sports learned that Morales was befuddled by the Indonesian early in the fight and got tagged at one point but once Morales got going he proved too good for the game Indonesian.

 

With the victory Morales improved to 10-0 with 6 knockouts while the game Indonesian dropped to 11-4 with 5 knockouts.

 

As an added incentive Morales also won the newly created WBO Oriental title behind the scores of the three judges who had him the winner with two of them scoring it 96-94 and the third judge 97-93.

 

The Morales-Marbun title fight will be telecast on Sunday, February 17 at 9:00 p.m. on Viva Sports top-rated weekly boxing show “The Main Event” sponsored by Tanduay, the No.1 Rhum. It will be replayed over the popular sports and entertainment cable channel Viva Prime which is also carried by Destiny Cable.

 

Gello-ani who handles Morales and is in the forefront of a move to get Mindanao promoters to get together points out that there is tremendous interest in boxing in the region together with a number of talented fighters who only need to get their skills honed through proper training. In fact, Gello-ani told Philboxing’s Dong Secuya” we now see that Morales has the moves, the toughess and the ability” but conceded the young fighter needs to “go back to the gym and do more work.”