By Ronnie Nathanielsz
Philippine super featherweight champion Bobby Pacquiao certainly doesn’t have the awesome punching power and the incredible courage of his elder and more illustrious brother, Ring Magazine featherweight champion Manny Pacquiao, but many boxing experts believe the southpaw is a technically superior fighter.
Whatever it is, Pacquiao’s seventh round knockout victory over highly touted Carlos Navarro on the main event on ESPN’s Friday Night Fights at the Table Mountain Casino in Friant, California, delighted Filipinos who were jubilant when the results were known through phone calls from Filipinos in the US and stories on boxing websites.
While the final round was a bizarre affair with referee Jon Schorle seen talking at length to Navarro when he was down on one knee and wasting considerable time asking Navarro to continue to fight even as the WBC Continental America’s 130 pound champion lost his mouthpiece giving him more time to recover, Filipinos couldn’t care less. Another Pacquiao had won a lower-category title beating the champion who had
earlier knocked out rough and rugged Agapito Sanchez.
Sanchez was the same WBO super bantamweight champion who used all the dirty tactics possible in a brawl with Manny Pacquiao in Pacquiao’s first defense of his IBF super bantamweight crown which ended in a controversial draw.
Two of the happiest people over Pacquiao’s victory were respected Cebu boxing patron Tony Aldeguer who owns the top class ALA Gym in Cebu City where Pacquiao trained and Michael Koncz who arranged the fight for Pacquiao and was also a key figure in bringing Mexican Gilberto Bolanos to Mandaue City last June 11 for a ten round showdown with WBO Asia Pacific bantamweight champion Rey “Boom Boom” Bautista who scored a sixth round TKO when a battered and bruised Bolanos sat on his stool and didn’t come out for the start of the round.
Aldeguer told Viva Sports/Manila Standard he was at first reluctant to take Pacquiao into his gym because there were very strict rules including an 8:00 p.m. curfew and from all accounts Pacquiao was inclined to take things easy as shown when he was short on training and suffered a ninth round KO to IBF Pan Pacific champion Fahprakorb Rakkiatgym last February 18 in Thailand. However, Aldeguer relented in the end as said he was glad he did because Pacquiao worked very hard and abided by the rules on discipline at the ALA Gym.
But what probably helped Pacquiao even more was the quality of sparring partners who included some of the most promising fighters in the Philippines including Oriental and Pacific Boxing Federation super featherweight champion and WBC No. 3 Randy Suico, WBF light welterweight champion Dindo Castanares, flashy Bart Abapo and rugged Dondon Sultan among others.
In a pre-fight interview Bobby Pacquiao said it was “a great opportunity for me to show the world that there is another boxer named Pacquiao who can fight and is worth watching. “ Pacquiao expressed the hope that he would some day “get the same kind of attention” that charismatic elder brother Manny Pacquiao gets. By all accounts, he’s on the way.
