PE?ALOSA TITLE DEFENSE IN TROUBLE
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Thu, 31 Jan 2008
The planned WBO bantamweight title defense of Gerry Pe?alosa against mandatory challenger Ratanachai Sor Vorapin is in trouble.
While the plan to stage the fight on March 2 at the Araneta Coliseum hasn?t been totally abandoned, ABS-CBN and Golden Boy Promotions are looking at a possible April date provided the budget could be reduced.
ABS-CBN vice president for sports Peter Musngi has been in constant touch with Golden Boy Promotions regarding the fight card and told Viva Sports/Manila Standard Today that the proximity to the Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez rematch made it hard to recover costs through advertising revenues since most of the money is being siphoned off by the Pacquiao fight.
Golden Boy Promotions Philippine representative Sammy Gello-ani also disclosed that with the inclusion of AJ ?Bazooka? Banal and Rey ?Boom Boom? Bautista in the card, the costs went up. He also confirmed reports that Pe?alosa was ?asking for too much? and that Vorapin was not an attractive opponent since Penalosa had knocked him out some years ago.
It also turned out that the Araneta Coliseum was not amenable to paying a ?site fee? for staging the fight and would prefer that the venue be rented by the promoters.
Gello-ani indicated that while March 2 is off since there was hardly time to promote the title bout, it doesn?t necessarily mean that the project has been scrapped. He said the plan is ?to move it back? to sometime in April. Although there is a fight card on April 4 in Dubai featuring Nonito ?The Filipino Flash? Donaire in a title defense against Australia?s Hussein Hussein, it was obvious that Donaire had nowhere near the following or the drawing power of Pacquiao so it would not be a major impact on sponsorship income.
Pe?alosa who left for Los Angeles with Pacquiao trains daily at the Wild Card Gym of celebrated trainer Freddie Roach.
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