ROACH TO START TRAINING RIVERA PROT?G?
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 02 Mar 2010
Celebrated trainer Freddie Roach has agreed, with some obvious prodding from his prized possession and “Fighter of the Decade” Manny Pacquiao to take an amateur prot?g? of boxing man and broadcaster Hermie Rivera under his wings beginning June 1.
The kid is Julian Santos Chua, a Golden Gloves champion from the Midwest whom Rivera is convinced can give the Philippines its first gold medal in the Olympic Games and then move on to a lucrative pro career.
Rivera, for all his occasional braggadocio, has a solid record to back him up and even his worst critics will concede, Hermie has an eye for spotting talent. The most remarkable was two-division world champion Luisito Espinosa. Earlier it was Philippine flyweight champion and world title challenger Socrates Batoto whose good looks and eye for beauty derailed his success in the ring.
There was also welterweight world champion Morris East who has now ballooned to a heavyweight in Las Vegas but fights no more and world light flyweight challenger Aniceto Vargas whom Rivera, who handled the fighter in partnership with the dzHP Radio clan of Milton Alingod, Ed Tipton and this reporter, fired for lack of discipline even without his partners permission.
Top photo: Roach (L) with Julian Chua.
Julian Chua (2nd from right) with Manny Pacquiao (R).
Rivera took the young hopeful Julian and some of his family members to see Pacquiao, Roach and Filipino trainer Buboy Fernandez and by all accounts Roach liked what he saw after doing some work on the punch-mitts with Santos Chua.
Roach plans to start working on this apparently uncut diamond after he graduates from high school on June 1. Roach was reportedly impressed after a spirited session on the punch-mitts even as he told the young prot?g? “hard work brings great things” with Pacquiao the prime example of that philosophy.
Roach said Julian “hits hard and is coachable” but admitted there’s a lot of work to be done. Pacquiao himself liked what he saw which means a whole new world opens up to Julian Santos Chua and his discoverer, the intrepid Hermie Rivera.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.
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