By Ronnie Nathanielsz
Jether 'The General' Oliva faces a tough battle when he takes on former WBC light flyweight champion Pedro Guevara of Mexico in Sinaloa on February 20.
The 28 year old Oliva, the World Boxing Federation Asia-Pacific flyweight champion who has a record of 23-4-2 with 11 knockouts is, coming off a lopsided but controversial loss to South Africa’s Zolani Tete in a WBO Africa light flyweight title fight in the Orient Theater in East London, South Africa last December 18 .
Oliva’s youthful manager Jim Claude “JC” Manangquil of SanMan Promotions in General Santos City believes flyweight is the ideal weight for Oliva who had dropped down in weight for the Tete fight and when he retired in the 4th round of a scheduled ten round bout against the much bigger 117 pound Luis Nery who was unbeaten with a record of 18-0 with 13 knockouts on February 28, 2015.
Guevara who is 26, has a record of 26-2-1 with 17 knockouts. He lost his WBC light flyweight crown by a split decision to Japan’s Yu Kimura last November 28 after impressive wins over Ganigan Lopez on July 4 last year and a stunning 1st round KO of Filipino Richard Claveras who started off aggressively but was dropped for the full count with one big punch on April 11, 2015 in a title fight in Sinaloa.
