By Ronnie Nathanielsz
WBO bantamweight champion Gerry Penalosa is “ready to go” according to conditioning expert Alex Ariza who says that WBO super bantamweight champion Juan Manuel “Juanma” Lopez may be in for a shock when they clash for Lopez’ 122 pound title in Puerto Rico on Sunday – Manila Time – in a fight to be telecast by Solar Sports.
In an overseas telephone conversation with BoxingScene.com, insidesports.ph, Standard Today and Viva Sports, Ariza said Lopez hasn’t faced anybody like Penalosa before and the veteran who has never been knocked out in his career can prolong the fight, then the longer it lasts the better chances Penalosa has of winning.
Lopez, in an interview on Boxeo Mundial was quoted as saying “this is going to be a fight that is going to be very difficult in the beginning” and predicted there is “going to be some infighting, some rough tactics from both him (Penalosa) and I.”
Lopez disputed claims that the longer the fight lasted the worse it would be for him stating that on the contrary as the rounds go by it would be worse for Penalosa “because he receives so many punches, he is going to get hurt and I don’t think the fight will go the distance.”
Ariza said that Lopez thinks in his head that he is going to knock everybody out in the first three or four rounds but “once the fight passes six rounds all night it will be all Gerry.”
The conditioning guru noted that Penalosa had sparred with a lot of “big sparring partners, a lot of strong guys and I have not seen Gerry ever back down. I have never seen him or Manny (Pacquiao) have a bad sparring session.”
Penalosa has been sparring with his young protégé Michael Farenas and Kid Diamond who are both big and strong.
Top Rank promoter Bob Arum who was wrong on both counts in his pre-fight analysis of Nonito Donaire vs Raul Martinez when he predicted a tough fight for “The Filipino Flash” who won by a fourth round TKO and hardly gave Brian Viloria a chance of beating IBF champion Ulises Solis whom Viloria knocked out in the eleventh round told us “Lopez is a lion and I think Gerry has his work cut out for him. But if he prevails it will be a big, big upset.”
Arum conceded that Penalosa has more experience than “Juanma” but said that everybody is looking at him as a future great. This is a big test for him fighting Penalosa but I don’t think I would be that optimistic.”
