Sultan & Tepora step up
It sure looks like things are looking bright for Cebu Boxing. With Milan Melindo fresh from defending his IBF world light flyweight title and Donnie Nietes all set to defend his IBF flyweight championship in November, the boxing community has been given a preview of the other boxers who’ll be climbing up the world rankings very soon. They’re both young, pack power in both hands, can box their way to wins, and just recently defeated their toughest opponents in their careers. If it’s any coincidence, they scored career-defining wins in South Africa where they were both tabbed to serve as stepping stones for South Africa’s prospects (who ended up hitting the canvass instead). Both also find themselves in “nice” dilemmas which I’m sure their handlers don’t mind at all.
Introducing Jonas “Zorro” Sultan. Thanks to his upset over former two-division world champion Johnriel Casimero at Pinoy Pride 42 last week, Sultan is expected to be rated as the top challenger in the IBF super flyweight division (115 pounds) where Pinoy Jerwin Ancajas is the world champion. Sultan went into the fight as an underdog, owing to Casimero’s two world championship belts in the light flyweight and flyweight divisions, but Sultan proved that he was ripe for the big time and is now ready to take on the rest of the world’s top boxers. While his 14-3 (9 KOs) record doesn’t look impressive on paper, and while he hasn’t received as much media attention as his more popular stablemates at the ALA Boxing Gym (until now), Sultan has definitely arrived. As the top-rated challenger, he gets mandatory status to the championship of Ancajas. And so after figuring in the biggest Pinoy vs Pinoy showdown of the year, do we see him in another Pinoy-Pinoy fight, this time for the IBF world junior bantamweight championship? Aside from Casimero, the other Pinoys in the IBF’s top ten for the division are Aston Palicte and Ryan Lumacad. We must note that this is the same weight division dominated by WBO champ Naoya Inoue of Japan and WBC champ Srisaket Sor Runvisai of Thailand who both defended their titles under one card recently in dominating fashion. Runvisai knocked out future Hall of Famer and P4P king Roman Gonzales, while Inoue has been practically toying with all opponents thrown at him. Does Ancajas stand a chance against both? And can Sultan pull off an upset against these two champions? Tough these choices may be, but these are situations Sultan doesn’t mind at all. There’s nowhere else to go but up.
The breaking news that converted our Saturday morning from good to great yesterday was the big second round knockout win of Jhack Tepora over Lusanda Komanisi of South Africa for the WBO Inter-Continental featherweight championship (126 pounds). Check it out on youtube and you’ll see what I mean. Tepora’s right hook sent Komanisi to the canvass with the South African swept of his feet. I haven’t seen a KO like this in a long time. The referee did the right thing of stopping the fight after Komanisi fell down after attempting to get back up. This is Tepora’s fourth regional title after previously winning WBO Oriental and Asia Pacific Youth championships at the junior featherweight division (122 pounds). He also won a WBF Asia Pacific belt also at 122 pounds. What’s more impressive is that this is Tepora’s first