By Dennis 'dSource' Guillermo
Feeling a little slighted when the WBC ordered him to take a title eliminator bout after being elevated as the numner one contender just a month prior after snagging the interim title, Denver "The Excitement" Cuello (31-4-6, 21 KOs) wasted no time in proving he is the division's true top dog.
Cuello battered Ganigan Lopez (20-4-0) in Mexico last week in two rounds to emerge as the mandatory challenger for Kazuto Ioka's WBC belt in the event he defends it successfully against WBA king Akira Yaegashi in their unification bout next month.
The fighting pride of Iloilo has been eying the Japanese champion for quite sometime now, and now that his stablemate Sonny Boy Jaro carries the WBC flyweight strap around him, Cuello is raring to get his paws, not only on the gold version of the belt he currently has, but also on Ioka himself.
"If you were going to ask me, he won't even finish a round," Cuello told me and Philboxing.com writer Chito Katangkatang. "I'm not trying to be an arrogant person and say things, but I'm also just confident in my own preparations and traning against," he added.
Cuello feels that Ioka has been avoiding him, and may plan to do so again if he wins against Yaegashi by vacating and moving up to light flyweight. In the event, Cuello said the WBC will just award him the belt, a belt he has more than earned after easily dispatching all the top rated opponents lined up against him.
"Ioka, stop running from me," Cuello emphatically stated when I asked him what his message is for the current WBC minimumweight champion.