Ponce de Leon Retains Title Via Unpopular Decision Win Against Pe?alosa
By Ed de la Vega, DDS
PhilBoxing.com
Mon, 19 Mar 2007
Las Vegas -- Daniel Ponce de Leon, the fistic terror from Chihuahua, Mexico proved once more that indeed, size, power and a little help from the judges make a hell of a lot of difference in boxing.
Last night, at the glitzy Events Center of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, Ponce de Leon won via an unpopular unanimous decision over his Filipino challenger, Gerry Pe?alosa, the former WBC Super flyweight champion who went up two weight classes to fight Ponce de Leon. With his victory, Ponce de Leon thus strengthened his hold on the WBO Super bantamweight title as well as his minor title, the IBA Super bantamweight title.
Since the fight was first announced, boxing pundits have predicted the result but not the final outcome. Everyone said Ponce de Leon will KO Pe?alosa. In fact, early betting odds heavily favored such thinking. The odd against Pe?alosa is so high that Vegas book makers took off the fight from the betting line. Ponce de Leon is a natural super bantamweight while Pe?alosa usually fights two weight classes below, at super flyweight.
Pe?alosa challenged Ponce de Leon because the other champions, Israel Vasquez of the WBO and Celestino Caballero of the WBA were not interested in defending their titles against him. Vasquez, incidentally lost his title to Rafael Marquez last Saturday March 3 via a 7th round TKO.
From the get go, Ponce de Leon’s advantage in size and reach was obvious. However, Pe?alosa managed to evade the long sweeping telegraphed punches of Ponce de Leon all evening and on many occasions his effective counter punching kept himself very much in the fight. Frequently, he even scored big power shots on Ponce de Leon snapping the latter’s head backward. However, Ponce de Leon took them all and dished out his own. In the end however, everybody’s prediction that Ponce de Leon will KO Pe?alosa proved wrong. Pe?alosa was in no danger of being KO’d anytime during the whole fight!
When the decision was announced, the crowd of mostly Mexicans did not receive it as they should have. Many, as well as this writer felt that Pe?alosa did enough to win the fight. “Your boy was robbed” said some of the fans who found out that I was a Pinoy because of the PhilBoxing T-shirt I wore. Unfortunately, the judges felt otherwise. To them it seemed the boxing clinic Pe?alosa put up was not convincing enough to give him the title.
In the main event for the evening, Juan Manuel Marquez beat Marco Antonio Barrera and grabbed the WBC Super featherweight title in the process.
All Photos by Dr. Ed de la Vega:
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