By Ronnie Nathanielsz
Canadian adviser Michael Koncz has picked another Canadian sparring partner, Ghislain Maduma, for eight division world champion Manny Pacquiao who plans to begin sparring Tuesday at the Pacman Wild Card Gym in his hometown of General Santos City.
Koncz had earlier chosen Dierry Jean, another Canadian fighter, to be one of Pacquiao’s sparring partners when he was training for the “Fight of the Century” against unbeaten, pound for pound king Floyd Mayweather Jr on May 2, 2015.
Mayweather has since retired.
The 31 year old Maduma from the Democratic Republic of the Congo by way of Canada has a record of 17-2 with 11 knockouts. He is a super lightweight standing 5’7” and won the North American Boxing Federation lightweight title with a 3rd round knockout of Mexican veteran John Carlos Aparicio on February 5, 2014 but lost to unbeaten Maurice Hooker in a WBO/NABO title fight by a split decision on October 17 last year with two judges – John McKaie 95-93 and and Kevin Morgan 95-94 giving Hooker the edge although the third judge Tom Schrek had Maduma the winner 95-93.
On May 31, 2014 Maduma gave Britain’s fancied Kevin Mitchell a stiff test on the undercard of the rematch between between Carl Froch and George Groves at Wembley Stadium when Mitchell failed to make the IBF mandated same-day weigh in by 1 ½ pounds in a title eliminator with the winner to face champion Miguel Vazquez and forfeited the opportunity to win and face the champion for the title.
Maduma controlled the fight in the early rounds with his aggressive style and it was only in the championship rounds beginning with the 9th that Mitchell began to connect with several clean punches which he followed up in rounds 10 and 11 when he staggered Maduma with a flurry of punches and stopped him on his feet at 2:56 of the 11th round.
At the time of the stoppage Maduma was ahead on the scorecards of all three judges 96-94.
Maduma’s promoter Camille Estephan describes his fighter as someone with “blazing hand-speed, power and accuracy. He’s explosive and always in top condition.”
The Standard’s Eddie Alinea reporting from GenSan in a story on philboxing.com said Maduma watched in awe as Pacquiao ripped into the punch-mitts in seven rounds with trainer Freddie Roach and later said Manny was “very strong and very fast. He’s good, he’s good” said Maduma constantly during the workout and predicted that Pacquiao will knock out his April 9 opponent Timothy “Desert Storm” Bradley within nine rounds.
