JAPAN, ARGENTINA WANT TO CHALLENGE RP FOR WORLD CUP
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 21 Aug 2007
Golden Boy Promotions vice president and international matchmaker Eric Gomez says Japan and Argentina want to challenge the Philippines for the $500,000 World Cup and have contacted Golden Boy regarding their interest.
The Philippines won the World Cup battle with Mexico by a 5-1 rout at the Arco Arena in Sacramento, California last Sunday highlighted by the WBO bantamweight title victory of former WBC super flyweight champion Gerry Penalosa who scored a stunning knockout over Mexican champion Jhonny Gonzales and smashing wins by Z “The Dream:” Gorres, AJ “Bazooka” Banal, Michael Domingo and Diosdado “The PrinceL Gabi. The only loss was the first round KO suffered by previously undefeated Rey “Boom Boom” Bautista at the hands of WBO super bantamweight champion Daniel Ponce De Leon.
Mexico won the inaugural staging of the World Cup two years ago with an overpowering 6-1 win over Thailand.
In an overseas telephone conversation with Viva Sports/Manila Standard Today, Gomez said “there are two countries that are interested.” Gomez said “we’ve had calls from Japan, Mr. Honda is very interested as well as Argentina, Mario Arano who is a big promoter over there is also very interested.”
Akihiko Honda who owns the famous Teiken Gym and is a well-known Japanese businessman handles several top class fighters including world champions Edwin Valero and Jorge Linares who are both Venezuelans living in Japan.
Japan also has several world champions who could well be matched against the best from the Philippines. The current Japanese world champions are bantamweight Hozumi Hasegawa (WBA), flyweights Takefumi Sakata (WBA) and Daisuke Naito (WBC), minimum weight Yutaka Niida (WBA) and straw weight Eagle Kyowa (WBC), a Thai who is married to a Japanese and has settled down in Japan.
Gomez said they would “sit down with Sammy Gello-ani and we’re gonna decide what’s the best country to go after. We are going to see what the best option is and we will continue ” Gomez indicated they would study what the best options are. He said a Philippines-Japan World Cup showdown ”would be fun.”
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