By Rey Danseco
WORLD rated boxer Benjie Sorolla is oozing with confidence of posting another win after learning that his Thai opponent has arrived Friday in Manila from Bangkok, Thailand in preparation for their title fight on Sunday.
Sorolla grinned and then flexed his muscle, showing his readiness for the scheduled 12-round fight against Samransak Singmanassak for the vacant World Boxing Organization (WBO) intercontinental minimumweight title in the main event of of the 11-fight, 70-rounds card of Marty Elorde’s Galorde Enterprises at Mayor Arsenio Castillo Coliseum in Camella Homes Springville City in Bacoor, Cavite.
The diminutive native of Magalona, Bohol wants to use Singmanassak as step towards regaining his lofty WBO No. 1 world ranking. The top ranked contender has the right for the mandatory fight against WBO minimumweight champ Ivan Calderon.
“It’s a must win for me and take the title because if I fail, it would be difficult for me to keep my world ranking and take a shot at Calderon,” said Sorolla, who is currently ranked WBO No. 8.
Sorolla once became the top ranked contender of Calderon until he was stripped of his WBO Asia Pacific minimumweight belt for failure of defending it in due time and then losing his last two fights both by technical decision against Alex Guevarra in round 5 last March and Nino Suelo in round 8 last June.
“I can’t accept the fact that I lost those fights. It’s because of headbutts (why I lost) and a lot of people say I won,” said Sorolla. “I had nothing to do, that’s how they decided the outcome of the fights and that’s why I must avenge those setbacks.”
The 25-year-old has made sure he’s in bed around 8 pm and keep away from liquor to make sure he’s in good condition in the next day training.
“I prepare so hard this fight,” said Sorolla, who trains under Sonny Sangalang in the last two months.
Sorolla spar for more than 130 rounds, most of which were against his stablemates Ryan Bito and Frankie Escaner. He also completed 18 rounds of sparring against WBC No. 6 light flyweight contender Juanito Rubillar and ex-RP champ and currently RP No. 8 junior bantam Celso Danggod.
Singmanassak arrived with his trainer and they belittles at Manila Pavilion, where the fight supervisor, WBO Vice President of Asia Pacific Leon Panoncillo, also will stay. Panoncillo’ arrival is expected today from Hawaii.
Elorde, who is in the United States, has problems in their funding for the installations.
They still need P300,000 or half of the P600,000 budget of the entire boxing event.
Elorde, relegated the supervision of the event to his mother Laura, has rooted the problem from failure of the ABC-5 to give him his profit share from television advertisements in their co-production program Ringside TV Boxing.
