Romero Duno's Failed Imitation of The Pacman
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Wed, 06 Nov 2019
The by and large rousing ring success of Manny Pacquiao since the last decade and through the current one about to end has spawned and continuous to inspire generations of Filipino fighters who wants to be like Manny.
There had been Jimrex Jaca who came near to upsetting Juan Manuel Marquez in their bloody featherweight confrontation in 2007, Manny's own younger brother, Bobby who for a time had a roll in the US ring, beating a few American and Mexican opponents at super featherweight and there's the trio of Al Sabaupan, Mercito Gesta and Harmonito de la Torre who also made names for themselves in the US boxing circuits in the lightweight class until they met their better matches, usually Mexicans.
Latest to suffer the same fate is Romero Duno who rose to fame by beating a couple of Mexican upstarts but fell ignominiously in his supposed breakout party fight against the latest lightweight superstar wannabe from south of Rio Grande.
It was indeed ironic that a Manny wannabe like Duno would lose in the manner he did---via first round knockout---to the latest Oscar de la Hoya wannabe, the handsome Ryan 'Kingry' Garcia.
Duno collapses on the canvas in the first round during his fight against Ryan Garcia.
Romero Duno certainly did a very poor imitation of the move and strategy that earned for Manny Pacquiao the monicker 'The Pacman' and paid dearly for it, being blown out of there courtesy of a well placed temple shot.
Of course, Kingry was gushing and gloating in victory. "Before this fight, they said that I was avoiding him," he said in the post fight interview. "Now they know how wrong they were."
It was even reported that Duno went to the pre-fight press conference wearing a t shirt emblazoned with the words, "Quit Running, Ryan".
"Duno came to fight and went straight at me, wanting to prove that he was a macho man but you know, there are certain areas of the head that when you hit it at the button squarely, one of them is the side of the temple, it's a sure knockout," Kingry dissected his most impressive major ring victory thus far.
Garcia even urge fellow Mexican Canelo Alvarez to do the same to his main event opponent Sergey Kovalev, shouting in parting, "Let's go for it (knockout), baby!"
Canelo actually did, knocking out Kovalev in the penultimate round of their 12 round title bout later that evening actually already early morning of the following day, Sunday, as their fight was delayed for about an hour by DAZN to give way to an MMA championship match being aired by rival ESPN.
In winning Kovalev's WBO light heavyweight belt, Canelo therefore is now a four weight division world champion, the first from Mexico to accomplish the feat above the welterweights. He is also the first to simultaneously hold world titles in three separate weight classes, the middleweight, super middleweight and light heavyweight. He previously held two titles at super welterweight or junior middleweight.
Ryan Garcia, with his spectacular victory, only boosts his stock among the lightweights that has Vasily Lomachenko on top and counts on names as Devin Haney, Teofimo Lopez, Richard Commey and now Garcia himself as future stars.
The defeat on the other hand laid to waste Duno's earlier high profile efforts and wins over erstwhile undefeated Oscar wannabe Christian 'Chimpa' Gonzalez and Javier Rodriguez who was the first to have inflicted a TKO loss on Mercito Gesta.
Duno's new trainer Rodel Mayol who himself has had tough duels against Mexicans when he was still fighting and a world titlist himself, is now bearing the full blame for Romero's very poor imitation of the Pacman strategy.
The supposed gobbler ended up being gobbled and spat out as an unrecognizable goo.
There are lessons to be learned by us here.
Chiefly, that there is only one true and special Pacman. And he was born and destined to be so.
The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.
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