Ph Crownless for the First Time; Prospects and Opportunities
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Thu, 03 Nov 2022
For the first time in over two decades, Philippine pro boxing will end the year without a single major world champion.
Riding on the nearly twenty years championship exploits across eight weight classes of the legendary now retired boxing great Manny Pacquiao, ably backstopped by the multi weight title feats of Nonito Donaire and Donnie Nietes and the quite lengthy former reign of Jerwin Ancajas, the country on that stretch ended each year with at least two or three major world boxing champions.
Starting 2022 with three world titlists, the country was rendered crownless with minimumweight Rene Cuarto, super flyweight Jerwin Ancajas and featherweight Mark Magsayo one after the other losing their valued trinkets, all in defense bouts held abroad. Cuarto fell to Mexican Daniel Valledares in his foe's hometown in Mexico. Ancajas was upset by Argentine buzzsaw Fernando Martinez in Las Vegas and Magsayo failed in his maiden WBC crown defense against another Mexican Rey Vargas, also in Las Vegas.
There had also been title opportunities during the year but we were not fortunate as comebacking Donnie Nietes dropped a unanimous verdict to former victim Kazuto Ioka in their long awaited rematch in Tokyo and Ancajas failing to regain his once long held IBF title against Martinez in the USA.
Philippine pro boxing hence for the first time in a long time will be ending the year without a single major world champion though flyweight Dave Apolinario holds the fringe International Boxing Organization or IBO "world title".
Hopefully, 2023 holds immediate prospects and opportunities for Filipino boxers to win a world boxing crown or two as sanctioned by the so called Big 4---WBC, WBA IBF and the WBO.
Super bantamweight Marlon Tapales, the former unbeaten WBO bantamweight champion, should have been the next mandatory challenger to unified WBA-IBF titleholder Morudjon Akhmadaliev of Uzbekistan But Akhmadaliev has sought a medical leave/break due to previous fight injury relegating Tapales bid in a limbo future.
To make his wait worthwhile, Tapales management is reportedly seeking sanction for a bout at the very least for the interim world championship in one of the Uzbek's title against the next highest rated contender who could either be Mexican Luis Nery or American Reese Aleem.
As of this writing, a decision has yet to be made by the IBF where Tapales is the mandatory challenger and which holds the priority in turn for Akhmadaliev's next defense.
Meanwhile, the same IBF has ordered a world title eliminator between highly rated Filipinos Mark Vicelles and Regie Suganob for the right to be the next challenger to new defending titlist Sive Notshinga of South Africa.
A negotiated agreement between the camps of the two Pinoy fighters is expected before the IBF deadline. Hence, we could expect either Vicelles or Suganob vying for the regular title by the first quarter of next year or April 2023 at most.
Recently a WBC-WBA world titles unification was held in Japan with Kenshiro Teraji stopping countryman Hiroto Kyoguchi to win both crowns. Teraji is reportedly keen in unifying all belts at 108 lbs and that could mean a confrontation with either Vicelles or Suganob should either of them win over Notshinga which is not a given of course.
Prospects still abound in boxing's lowest weight class as former Filipino world titlists abound and are still rated by most sanctioning bodies as Rene Cuarto, Pedro Taduran and Vic Saludar but current ratings show that the Japanese fighting siblings of Ginjiro and Yudai Shigeoka have passed them in the rankings except for Melvin Jerusalem.
Jerusalem who once vied for the world crown at minimumweight is currently the number one contender to the WBO title being held by Japanese Masataka Taniguchi and perhaps his camp will no longer have problem convincing the Japanese to defend his title against Melvin.
But memory of Taniguchi earlier losing to Saludar may still be fresh.
We have no immediate world title prospect at flyweight as Giemel Magramo lost his last fight for the OPBF Title to Yuta Kurahara recently. The WBO crown which he vied for and lost to Junto Nakatani in 2021 has recently been vacated by Nakatani who has moved up to super flyweight in a bid for a future another all Japanese world title fight versus WBO titlist Kazuto Ioka.
IBO champion Dave Apolinario is highly rated but not by the WBO. The other major world champions at flyweight
however look formidable as UK's Sunny Edwards, Russian Artem Dalakian and Julio Cesar Martinez of Mexico. Kind of bleak our prospect at 112.
We still have Nietes, Ancajas and Jade Bornea rated at super flyweight but I don't see any of them to figure in the world title prospect opened by Jessie Bam Rodriguez vacating his WBC regular title to move down to flyweight. Probably Nonito Donaire if he so decides to move further down to 115.
However, Donaire and probably Johnriel Casimero may decide to stay on at bantamweight with the announced intention of Monster Naoya Inoue going up to 122 or super bantamweight/junior featherweight once he has unified all major belts at 118 against UK's WBO titlist Paul Butler this December.
If that happens, Donaire and Casimero and perhaps even Vincent Astrolabio, another Pinoy conqueror of he once great Cuban Guillermo Rigondeaux, will surely be in the fight for any of the world titles Naoya will leave behind.
Let us hope and pray for most of these to happen next year.
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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