VILORIA FACES TOUGH FIGHT AGAINST TAMARA
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 17 Jan 2010
IBF light flyweight champion Brian Viloria who won the title with a spectacular 11th round knockout over heavily favored Ulises Solis before a wildly cheering crowd of Filipino fight fans at the Araneta Coliseum last April 19 plans to provide the same excitement when he goes on a “Collision Course” against Colombia’s Carlos Tamara at the Cuneta Astrodome on January 23.
Viloria headlines a Solar Sports fight card which also sees WBO minimum weight champion Donnie Nietes defend his title against WBC Youth World Interim champion Jesus Silvestre of Mexico.
Three more Filipinos striving to break into the world rankings will add even more excitement to the “Battle by the Bay” as Dennis Laurente seeks to avenge an earlier loss in a WBC International light welterweight showdown with Prawet Singwancha of Thailand, promising 17 year old lightweight Jason Pagara clashes with Eddy Comaro of Indonesia and returning Jimrex Jaca who now trains at the ALA Gym faces Indonesia’s Ramadhan Weriu in a battle of hard-hitting southpaws.
Viloria concedes that the 26 year old Tamara who advanced to the second round in the 2004 Athens Olympic Games and won a silver medal in the Pan American Games is a “really tough opponent” behind a record of 20-4 with 14 knockouts.
Viloria who is 29 and has a record of 26-2 with 15 knockouts intends to overcome the Colombian’s height advantage by “pressuring him because I don’t see him fighting well going backwards so my pressure and my combinations should be able to win this fight.”
Viloria described Tamara as a “power fighter and a boxer. He is an Olympian also (Viloria represented the US in the 2000 Sydney Olympics) and he has experience behind him but I intend to go in there and put him against the ropes or push him back and that’s going to take away from his height and reach advantage.”
Viloria said his training camp under former world champion Robert Garcia in Oxnard was “perfect and my conditioning is great and I can last twelve rounds. I have worked more on my head movement and defensive work and I have worked a lot on my combinations so I am prepared for this fight.”
In his first IBF title defense against Mexico’s Jesus Iribe at the Blaisdell Center in Honolulu, Viloria was comfortably ahead on points but decided to slug it out in the final round when he didn’t have to. Viloria explained “I didn’t have to but my conditioning is there and I knew I could finish the fight like I started the first round.” Besides, since it was the first world championship bout in Honolulu after more than 30 years, he wanted to give the fans something to remember and at the same time help revive interest in boxing in Hawaii. By all accounts Viloria succeeded in both.
He said “I have been progressing in each fight and I’m getting more confident and so I’m ready even for this fight.”
Nietes (25-1-3, 154 KO’s) who has trained long and hard for his title defense against Silvestre (15-1, 12 KO’s) said he had seen Silvestre fight before and he had studied some of the fight videos of his opponent. Nietes noted that Silvestre “always uses his left and likes to resort to body punching” but from what he has seen Nietes said “he doesn’t hit that hard and he’s not that quick.” However, Silvestre’s record appears to tell a somewhat different story as he is coming off a 1st round knockout of Felipe Lopez last December 12 and had three previous stoppages last year .
Nietes said he was “in great condition and eager to fight and I am going to knock him out for sure within five or seven rounds.”
Having gone to Mexico and successfully defended his title twice beating Manuel “Chango” Vargas by split decision last September 12 and winning a comfortable unanimous decision over Erik Ramirez last February 28, Nietes said “I was not scared by any Mexican opponent. I was only scared of the swine flu.”
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.
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