A Title Fight Between two Filipinos is Great For Philippine Boxing
By Ed de la Vega, DDS
PhilBoxing.com
Thu, 12 Apr 2018
It has been many years since two Filipino warriors have fought for a world title. The last one on the books was that between Pancho Villa and Clever Sencio at the old Wallace Field (now known as Luneta) some nine decades ago. Saturday, May 2, 1925 to be exact.
Don?t you think it?s about time we see one again? Nothing wrong with that, isn?t it?
Now that IBF has mandated the title defense of super flyweight champion Jerwin Ancajas versus his mandatory challenger Jonas Sultan from the ALA Gym in Cebu, people had been expressing varying opinions about the fight slated on May 26th at the Cosmopolitan Casino Resort at Las Vegas.
Some are elated about the coming fight. Others are not too keen about it.
This writer believes that the fight is a good thing for Philippine boxing and its foolish to think or even wish that it should not happen!
What is so wrong about two Filipino fighting for a title?
Other countries make it happen everyday. Look at Mexico. Their fighters fight each other for titles as easy as they whip up a great taco.
Their system and their attitude towards two Mexicans fighting for a title has not only created memorable fights but also upgraded the quality of their fighters. Some of the great ones in the past few years were really barnburners. There is the Rafa Marquez-Israel Vasquez, the Eric Morales-Marco Barrera and even the up coming rematch of Leo Santa Cruz and Abner Mares to mention a few.
I can easily understand why Filipinos are a bit uncomfortable about two of our boxers fighting for a title.
Filipinos are by nature sentimental and many times that carries them away.
But the fight business is purely ?hurt? business. There is no room for sentimental feelings. It?s more of the ?it's rather me and not you? type of a thing! If one cannot accept that, they have no place in boxing.
So what happens if some quirky boxing politics happens and 4 Filipinos are ranked 1-2-3? Given present day boxing politics that is not too impossible to happen.
Will we rather accept a fight between the Filipino champion and the 4th ranked just so two Filipinos will not be fighting against each other? That would not be fair for the top three that labored hard to get to where they are!
The Ancajas-Sultan fight is now set. ?Ain?t nothing can be done about it? as one purist has mentioned. Now we have another possible one between WBO No. 1 contender Donnie Nietes and No. 2 Aston Palicte.
If we had our way, are we going to stop that from happening too?
I think Filipino boxing fans and other stake holders should lighten up and drop that ?sentimental stuff?. That is for the birds. If two Filipinos are mandated to fight for a title, so be it. Let the best one win.
Instead of trying or wishing it would not happen, why don?t we do the opposite? Why don?t we encourage the fight to happen instead and go all out to make it succeed?
It?s good for the fighters, the stakeholders and Philippine boxing.
And you know what would be the best thing to do in these all-Filipino title fights?
We the Filipinos regardless of who we are, government officials, stakeholders or just lowly boxing fans should all come out and totally support them.
More importantly, we should buy tickets to help the promoters and not expect freebies regardless of who we are! We should stop putting pressure on the promoters to provide free seats just because we can.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ed de la Vega, DDS.
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