LORENZO VILLANUEVA DREAMS OF REBUILDING SHATTERED LIFE
By Manny Piñol
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 22 Apr 2011
It was the murder of his father when he was 15 years old that shattered his family and led Lorenzo "Thunderbolt" Villanueva to the world of boxing.
He was away from home hunting wild birds in Bual Norte, Midsayap, North Cotabato, just a few kilometers away from the battlefields of Liguasan Marsh where soldiers and secessionist rebels were often locked in bloody protracted battles, when a neighbor who was armed with a scythe slit the throat of his father following a quarrel.
Learning of his father's killing, Villanueva rushed home and attempted to exact revenge on his father's killer but the suspect escaped. The killer was also later on killed while he was in jail, apparently by Villanueva's relatives.
But the death of his father shattered his family. The small piece of land that his father worked on had to be mortgaged to pay for the funeral expenses. His mother left soon after his father's death.
Lorenzo, who was then starting to participate in the grassroots boxing program that I started as Governor of North Cotabato, decided to move over to the provincial capitol to join the other boys who were members of the amateur boxing team.
"Para makakaon lang," he said. (Just so I will be able to eat.)
His older sister had to find job abroad while Lorenzo was left behind to assume the role of head of the family at the very young age taking care of five younger brothers and sisters.
It was the desire to get his siblings out of poverty that motivated Villanueva, whose boxing skills are inferior than the other boxers, to excel. He ran faster, jogged longer and trained harder.
And while he is timid and shy outside the ring, hardly even talking except when engaged in a conversation, he is transformed into a ferocious fighter once he wears the gloves.
"Once he is inside the ring, there is nothing in his mind but to throw punches and he does that without even thinking of how he looks like while he is throwing a punch," said Braveheart chief trainer Noli Pinol, my younger brother.
Admittedly, if we are to consider skills and ring savvy, Lorenzo will get failing grades inside the ring.
The only problem is, how do you give a boxer a failing grade, never mind if he is awkward and gangling, when he has won all of his 20 fights, 19 of these by knockout?
I was never impressed with Lorenzo in his early years. In fact, I get irritated every time I saw him flailing at his opponent inside the ring. But as he piled up one knockout after another and just shrugged off heavy punches that could have sent other boxers to dreamland, I began to realize that the boy has the power, the heart and the chin.
And most of all, he has the motivation to excel and win.
"I want to rebuild our family," he told me after scoring a 5th round technical knockout over Indonesian James Mokoginta in Bacolod City April 9 for his third defense of the World Boxing Organization (WBO) Oriental Featherweight Title.
Three days after that fight, Lorenzo asked for my permission to go home to his village after receiving his first decent purse from his promoter, ALA Boxing.
With his prize money safely kept in his bag, Lorenzo told me he will use his purse to redeem the piece of land his family owns which was mortgaged to a relative following the death of his father.
Then, he dreams of building a house and bring home his sister, Laurie, who has never been heard off since she left for Jordan, and her mother, who left home following the death of his father.
On Monday, Lorenzo will leave for Cebu City to undergo a 6-week physical conditioning program under ALA Boxing physical conditioning coach Pio Solon and hopefully move over to the United States to train with legendary boxing trainer Robert Alcazar, who handled Golden Boy Oscar dela Hoya as an amateur and a professional fighter and Venezuelan knockout artist Edwin Valero, to whom Villanueva is being likened to.
Now, he is ranked No. 5 in the featherweight division by the WBO and is already in the same Top Ten world ranking as Rafael Marquez, Yuriorkis Gamboa, Orlando Salido, Daniel Ponce de Leo and Juan Manuel Lopez. But it will still be a long journey to boxing glory for this awkward and gangling fighter from North Cotabato.
Certainly, there will still be dark days ahead of him but the the fire of a desire to rebuild his life burning intensely in his heart, it is almost certain that Lorenzo Villanueva will achieve his dreams.
Top photo: Lorenzo Villanueva (R) in action against James Mokoginta of Indonesia last April 9 in Bacolod City. Photo by Dong Secuya.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Manny Piñol.
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