Condes Promised IBF Title Shot

By Rey Danseco
 
PHILIPPINE minimumweight champion Florante Condes was assured that he will get his first world title shot in the first quarter of this year.

Indonesian Martinez dos Santos requested International Boxing Federation (IBF) president Marian Muhammad to give his boxer, IBF minimumweight champion Muhammad Rachman more time to recover from his injury before taking Condes on in a title fight sometime in April.

Dos Santos claimed his 35-year-old world champion suffered a ligament injury before defending the crown against Elorde boxer Benjie Sorolla in a controversial technical knockout win in the seventh round on December 23 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

"We requested the fight in April because of Rachman's ligament injury before fighting Benjie Sorolla in December," said Dos Santos.

IBF championship chairman Lindsey Tucker made clear to Rachman that he is not allowed to choose his challenger or make a unification bout against his counterparts in other major boxing organizations until he fulfilled his obligation to make a mandatory defense.

Condes is one of the country’s hard-hitting fighters. He has 21 wins, three loses, a draw with 20 of his victories have come by way of knockout.

The 26-year-old southpaw from Binangonan in Rizal took the RP 105-lb title with a fifth round stoppage of erstwhile champion Elmer Gejon of Cebu last February. He defended the title twice, both against challengers from Cebu to prove that boxers from Luzon are better today than their counterparts in the Visayas.

Rachman captured the title in September 2004 and defended it thrice to improve to 61-5-5, 31 KOs.