JUSTICE IS GIVING PENALOSA A TITLE SHOT!
By Jason Aniel
PhilBoxing.com
Thu, 18 Feb 2010
San Mateo, CA—The city of Las Vegas has not been kind to the former two-time world champion, Gerry Penalosa. In 2007, Penalosa faced the power punching, Daniel Ponce de Leon, against the advice of many people around the Filipino and around the boxing community. One writer in particular suggested that Penalosa be banned from fighting such a young, strong puncher like de Leon. Gerry was 34 at the time and moving up in weight to face de Leon, who was knocking out every opponent in front of him. Many expected that Penalosa would not last 4 rounds with the WBO 122lbs titlist. Well, not only did Penalosa last more than 4 rounds, but he also gave de Leon one of his toughest fights at the time over 12 closely contested rounds. Penalosa forced de Leon to run and pity pat his way during the last half of the fight—a complete reversal from what most predicted the fight would play out. A large contingent of writers even believed Penalosa won the fight despite the scorecards of the 3 judges which inexcusability awarded de Leon a wide unanimous decision win.
Fast-forward 3 years later and in the same city, Penalosa was once again a victim of a horrible decision. This time he fought Eric Morel, a former flyweight world champion, in hopes at one more shot at a world title. Like de Leon, Erik Morel was in full retreat mode from the 6th round on. Gerry pressured his opponent with a good body attack, and received nothing effective back from Morel. The U.S. television announcers and most the majority of the fans and writers on press row had Penalosa as the clear winner that night. However, 2 of the 3 judges scored the fight in favor of Morel, who took the WBO interim title and will get the title shot Penalosa earned.
That decision loss to Morel was one of several decisions Gerry lost where you can make a strong argument that he should have won the fight. In fact, I first learn about Penalosa in 2001, when my friend and mentor, Quinito Henson, gave me a tape of Penalosa’s rematch against In-Jo Cho back in 2000. The bout took place in Cho’s hometown of South Korea. Cho defeated Penalosa in the first fight to take his Super Flyweight title in 1998 in a close split decision. In the rematch Penalosa controlled much of the action with Cho flicking jabs and boxing (sound familiar). Penalosa was deducted one point because of a wet corner where Cho kept slipping on. Penalosa lost a split decision in a bout he should have won.
Penalosa lost in two more attempts at a world title against Japan’s Masamori Tokuyama. Both fights took place in Japan with the first being a unanimous decision loss and the second being a controversial split decision loss where headbutts played a key factor in that fight.
When it’s all said and done, you can make a strong case that Gerry’s lone convincing loss was a 10 round stoppage against Juan Manuel Lopez at 122lbs, a two time world champion, who may be a future lightweight champion and pound for pound great.
The shame of it all is that at 37 years old, Penalosa only has one or two more fights left in him. While he didn’t receive punishment in terms of punches landed by Eric Morel, he did suffer two bad cuts and exuded a lot of energy to close out the last 6 rounds strong.
It is Gerry’s goal to retire as a world champion and his effort last Saturday was deserving of a title shot. Based on all indications, Penalosa will likely retire from the sport unless he can one more title shot. The WBO should give him that title shot he earned. At worse, the WBO should grant an immediate rematch between Penalosa and Morel. But that is not even enough because it will mean Penalosa going another 12 rounds against Morel in order to get another title shot.
If the WBO wants to write an obvious wrong they should mandate WBO Bantamweight titlist, Fernando Montiel, to fight Penalosa with the winner facing Erik Morel. That way, Morel will eventually get his title shot and Penalosa will get one more shot a title he earned based off last Saturday’s performance.
If that doesn’t happen, then Penalosa will likely retire a great champion and a great Filipino fighter. Gerry and his family have several business and boxing gyms set up throughout the Philippines; so his future in sport as a trainer or manager is secure. If his loss to Morel is his last fight, he can go out with his head held high, knowing he can still fight at a high level against top opposition. Often, the end of a fighter’s boxing career is on his back looking up at the lights after being knocked out. Some of the greatest fighters in the world ended their careers with an embarrassing knockout loss. In recent Philippine boxing history, former two-time world champion, Luisito Espinosa, ended his career being knocked out and eventually medically banned from boxing. As it stands now, Penalosa won’t have that same fate—but he deserved more than what he got in his last fight.
QUICK JABS
Kudos to Philboxing commentator and expert, Ronnie Nathanielsz, for accurately pointing out how gaunt and shriveled up Ciso Morales looked at the weigh-in before his fight with Fernando Montiel. Unknown at the time to this columnist, Morales, who fought most of his career at 122lbs, was simply too big to safely make 118lbs. It was obvious he had trouble making weight because he was too tired to even do post weigh-in interviews with the media. It was only fitting that Morales was stopped with a body punch. Morales is only 22 and has more than enough time to rebound after the loss…Nonito Donaire has the best overhand counter left hook since Luisito Espinosa. It’s going to cause opponents a lot of trouble in the future…Good win by Bernabe Concepcion over a dangerous opponent in Mario Santiago. However, he will have to work much harder and be in better shape if he expects to have any success against Juan Manuel Lopez…So if Floyd Mayweather sells more PPV’s than Manny Pacquiao in their next fight, 50-50 split is off the table. Mayweather should focus on getting more than 1.25 million PPV’s when he faces Shane Mosley. Mayweather-Mosley on paper and in terms of history is a bigger fight than Pacquiao’s last couple opponents. Floyd shocked many people when he got 1 million buys for his fight with Marquez. It will definitely be an interesting Spring for boxing. For the record, I expect Mayweather to win a decision over Mosley and wouldn’t be surprised if it were fairly easy for “Money”…Speaking of Mayweather and Pacquiao, several sources around the legal world familiar with these types of defamation lawsuits say that basically in order for Pacquiao to win his lawsuit against Mayweather, he would have to submit to blood testing.
Contact the writer at sportnjordan@gmail.com or www.twitter.com/sportnjordan
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Jason Aniel.
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