By Ronnie Nathanielsz
Internationally known matchmaker Sampson Lewkowicz plans on taking some promising young Filipino fighters to the US to train at a good gym before scheduling fights for them in the US.
In a telephone conversation with insidesports.ph, Standard Today and Viva Sports, Lewkowicz who met Monday night with very active promoter Sammy Gello-ani said they discussed future plans and the meeting was “very good."
Among the fighters they had in mind were Marvin “Marvelous” Sonsona, Anthony “Rocky” Marcial, Jhonreil Casimiro and Richie Mepranum.
Flyweight Sonsona (8-0, 7 KO’s) is the WBO Asia Pacific Youth champion who stands 5’7” while Marcial is a 5’9” WBO Oriental super featherweight interim champion with an unbeaten record of 10-0, 9 knockouts. Casimiro is the light flyweight WBO Asia Pacific champion and is also undefeated with a record of 8-0, 7 knockouts while flyweight Mepranum is the WBO Oriental champion and sports a record of 14-2-1 with 3 knockouts.
Lewkowicz said the fighters they are looking at need to have more fights in the Philippines against worthy opponents before they debut in the US because he said “the people don’t know these Filipinos even though the Filipino is the most important.”
Lewkowicz said he didn’t want to bring boxers with a mere ten fights or six or eight rounders because “it is dangerous” even as he indicated “we need to look for the next Manny Pacquiao.” In fact it was Lewkowicz who was promoter Murad Muhammad’s matchmaker who convinced Murad to sign up Pacquiao after first watching a tape of his WBC flyweight title fight against Thailand’s Chatchai Sasakul in December 1998 which Pacquiao won by an eighth round demolition.
