BY Ronnie Nathanielsz
Former WBC super flyweight champion Gerry Penalosa is once again a world champion although its in the fledgling World Boxing Foundation which replaced the World Boxing Federation last year. Penalosa won the vacant WBF crown with a smashing seventh round KO over undefeated Thai challenger Bangsaen Sithpraprom who had won his last two fights this year by knockouts and had a record of 14-0 with 7 knockouts while Penalosa toted a record of 47-5-2 with 32 KO’s.
Respected international referee Bruce McTavish who handled the title fight said in his opinion Penalosa “will give any world champion a good fight.” McTavish said the 32 year old southpaw who came out of retirement in what he indicated was an effort to give the Philippines another world champion aside from “People’s featherweight Champion” Manny Pacquiao dominated the scheduled twelve round bout with nifty combinations and a surprising aggressiveness which was a turnaround from his normally ultra-defensive posture in his previous controversial WBC title fight losses to Masamori Tokuyama and In-joo Cho.
Penalosa nailed Bangsaen with a left straight that sent him sprawling on the canvas at 1:45 of the seventh round with referee McTavish not even bothering to count. In a post fight interview Penalosa indicated he wanted to go after a world title saying he "wanted to show that I still have the reflexes and my power is still there."
Veteran boxing analyst Moy Lainez conceded that Penalosa looked good but added that it was because he was fighting a comparatively weak opponent. Lainez said “if Gerry is classified as a Class “A” fighter, then the Thai was a Class “B” fighter which made Penalosa look good.” However, the general impression was that Penalosa had it in him to go after a world title and Lainez said the best opponent would be IBF super flyweight champion Luis Perez of Nicaragua who was battered in the Wild Card Gym of Freddie Roach in a sparring session with Filipino Roger Galicia.
The fight card was described as “excellent” by McTavish who said the Thais, unlike some previous instances “were fighters not patsies” and provided fight fans with entertaining bouts. The card was promoted by Internationally known promoter Gabriel “Bebot” Elorde Jr, son of the illustrious late world junior lightweight champion Gabriel “Flash” Elorde.
