RUBILLAR GOES AFTER IBO WORLD TITLE ON SATURDAY
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Thu, 25 Feb 2010
While all attention is focused on ”Marvelous” Marvin Sonsona’s WBO super bantamweight title fight against Wilfredo Vazquez Jr in Puerto Rico and WBC light flyweight champion Rodel Mayol’s first title defense against mandatory challenger Omar Nino Romero in Guadalajara, Mexico, veteran Juanito Rubillar’s fight for the vacant International Boxing Organization light flyweight title has received scant attention.
Rubillar who left for South Africa with his manager Gabriel “Bebot” Elorde Jr some days ago is a 33 year old veteran with a record of 48-13-7 with 23 knockouts and has fought several times for the world title in different organizations but failed to win as yet.
He meets comparatively inexperienced Hekkie “The Hexecutioner” Budler who has a record of 13-0 with 5 knockouts in Kempton Park, Gauteng and the consensus in South Africa is that the fight will mark Budler’s stiffest test and his introduction to the big time.
The 22 year old Budler is the smallest of all the participants in the Golden Gloves tournament and the Sowetan newspaper says that “with only 13 fights, whirlwind Budler will face his biggest test since he turned professional in 2007 against the battle-scarred Filipino warrior Rubillar, a lefty who has fought 68 times.”
The newspaper reported that Rubillar, Budler and the other fighters on the card were all given a clean bill of health by Peter Chadderton during the pre-fight medical.
Rubillar won the WBC Continental Americas title with a ten round split decision win over Jose Guadalupe Martinez in Mexico last November 21.
Budler in his last fight scored a 1st round knockout over Motswaki Moselesele on October 31, 2009.
Top photo: Juanito Rubillar (2nd from right, back row) pose with other fighters for Saturday's card in Africa.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.
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