WBO PRESIDENT PREDICTS BANAL WILL BE A WORLD CHAMPION
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 27 Feb 2007
WBO president Francisco "Paco" Valcarcel has predicted that AJ "Bazooka" Banal will become a world champion.
Valcarcel who was at special ringside for the celebrated "Moment of Truth" fight card at the Cebu City Sports Complex last Saturday and watched Banal demolish Thailand’s Komrit 3K Battery in 2:11 of the first round said "he is tremendous."
Valcarcel said Banal reminded him of the great Hector "Macho" Camacho who he saw in 1980-81. He said Banal "has a good jab, he can punch and he would be a world champion for sure." Valcarcel said "we are scouts. I got my scouts here and I have Leon (Panoncillo) working for a good WBO Asia Pacific title fight" for Banal.
The WBO president said Banal "deserves to be in the rankings. He will be a tremendous fighter. He would be a star."
The 17 year old Banal’s spectacular KO over Komrit improved his unbeaten record to 12-0-1 with 10 knockouts while the Thai dropped to 15-3-0 with 11 KO’s.
Referring to the staging of the fight by respected Cebu boxing patron Tony Aldeguer and his family led by his son Michael Aldeguer who is slowly assuming the mantle of his father and promoter/manager Sammy Gello-ani, Valcarcel said "this is outstanding. Great. Great. I never expected we were going to have a show like this here. It’s a first class show."
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