Is the Bantamweight Our New Flyweight?
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Wed, 02 Jun 2021
Is the bantamweight now the Filipinos new bread and butter weight class vice the flyweight?
That's worth asking now as there is no Filipino fighter figuring prominently lately mainly at 112 lbs flyweight which is one of boxing's original traditional weight class and where Filipino fighters from Pancho Villa first made their mark.
The highest rated Filipino flyweights are Geimel Magramo and Jason Mama but they are nowhere near the world title with Magramo losing his chance against Junto Nakatani in Japan last year and Mama getting side stepped by Moruti Mthalane for UK's Sunny Edwards who is now the IBF world titlist. No other rated Pinoy flyweight has a shot at any of the major world titles.
On the other hand, in the 118 lbs bantamweight division, also one of boxing's original weight class, two Filipinos are now reigning as world champions with one more aiming to become the third this month. Another holds a belt as interim titleholder while another one is highly rated by most of the world sanctioning bodies.
Former multi division world boxing champion Nonito Donaire recently joined WBO titlist Johnriel Casimero as world titleholder in the bantamweight becoming ruler of the WBC version once again after nearly ten years by knocking out French Algerian Nordine Oubaali in the fourth round in Carson, California, USA. Pushing 39 years old, Donaire is also the oldest to win a world title in the division, breaking the record of compatriot Gerry Peñalosa who at 35, won the WBO belt in 2007 by body shot knockout over Mexican Jhonny Gonzalez.
Meanwhile, Michael Dasmariñas attempts to make it all Filipino affair at the division as he takes on the Japanese Monster Naoya Inoue for his unified WBA super, IBF and Ring Magazine belts this June in the US. He is given very little chance, but who knows?
As if the three is not crowd enough, Reymart Gaballo holds the WBC interim belt which he won last December by decision over ex IBF titleholder Emmanuel Rodriguez of Puerto Rico. Rodriguez is gearing for an immediate rematch with the winner emerging as possible challenger for Donaire.
Not far behind is another Filipino Mike Plania who made waves last year by winning all his fights in the US, including over Joshua Greer for the North American championship, earning him high rankings in the bantamweight class among the major world boxing sanctioning bodies.
Two other Filipinos are in the world ratings at bantamweight namely Aston Palicte and the popular Ifugao youthful prodigy Carl Jammes Martin.
Since Ilonggo Francisco Guilledo AKA Pancho Villa won the country's and Asia's first world pro boxing championship at flyweight by knocking out UK's legendary Mighty Atom, Jimmy Wilde in New York in 1922, the Philippines has won many more world boxing titles.
Of the more than 60 world championships won by Filipino fighters, nearly half came at the 112 lbs flyweight class and surrounding classes that were instituted beginning in the late 70s and early 80s, namely the 105 lbs strawweight or minimumweight, the 108 lbs light flyweight and 115 lbs super flyweight or junior bantamweight.
In the aftermath of Flash Elorde losing the country's then only world title, the junior lightweight in 1967 where many then felt like it was the end of their world as far as boxing, two Filipinos became world champions one after the other at flyweight: Bernabe Villacampo at WBC in 1968 and Erbito Salavarria at WBA in 1970.
Of course, Rene Barrientos and Pedro Adigue also won titles with WBC at junior lightweight and junior welterweight during this period but like Villacampo, their reign did not last long. On the other hand, Salavarria not only lasted until 1972, he also had another reign that extended through the mid 70s.
That probably prompted Filipino boxing aficionados to start to look up the flyweight as our main hope for world titles. And why not, three of the five Filipinos to win world titles after Villa and before Elorde were all flyweights: Small Montana, Little Dado in the 1930s and 40s and FilAm Dado Marino in the 1950s.
The trend continued even as Ben Villaflor and Rolando Navarette both won world titles at 130 lbs in the mid 70s and early 80s with the likes of Frank Cedeno, Dodie Boy Peñalosa, Jr., Rolando Bohol down to Manny Pacquiao, Malcolm Tuñacao, Gerry Peñalosa, Nonito Donaire, FilAm Brian Viloria, Johnriel Casimero, Jerwin Ancajas and Donnie Nietes in the 1990s through recent decades, winning world straps at flyweight and immediately surrounding divisions.
However, this trend seems to change in the direction of the bantamweights which until Luisito Espinosa won the Philippines world crown in the late 80s, was regarded as the Filipinos waterloo division in boxing.
The coming months will see if the bantamweights is not only the new flyweight class of old for Filipinos but yet be the country's glory division in boxing.
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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