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Peñalosa’s tune-up foe a workhorse
Written by staff   
Tuesday, 20 January 2009 01:20

The opponent of WBO bantamweight champion Gerry Peñalosa in his tune-up fight scheduled on February 21 is a workhorse based on his record alone.

German Meraz, the 22-year-old Mexican picked by Cotabato vice-governor and fight promoter Manny Piñol to face Peñalosa, has a record of 20-11 with 8 knockouts.

The striking statistic, however, is that Meraz fought 13 times in 2008, winning 8 and losing 5. In fact, he had three fights in May alone.

Meraz won his last two fights by stoppage. On November 8, 2008 he scored a 5th-round technical knock out over Juan Chabelas. In a rematch on December 13, he won by a 4th round TKO.

The Mexican lost a unanimous eight-round decision to undefeated Zsolt Bedak (10-0, 3 KO’s) on September 27 and also dropped a unanimous decision to another undefeated fighter, Hernan Marquez (18-0, 14 KO’s) on July 12 last year.

The only problem regarding Peñalosa’s tune-up match as of now is that it has yet to be approved by WBO president Francisco “Paco” Valcarcel.

The WBO executive said he would only approve the tune-up fight once the WBO received a signed contract for the announced April 4 title fight between Penalosa and WBO super bantamweight champion Juan Manuel “Juanma” Lopez.

Penalosa’s manager Billy Keane, meanwhile, said he was concerned that Valcarcel may get peeved over the fact that the tune-up fight was announced even before it had been sanctioned by the WBO.

However, Keane said he was “optimistic that the fight will happen”.

Peñalosa, who is training in Baguio City with IBF/IBO flyweight champion Nonito “The Filipino Flash” Donaire, said training camp is going very well and he feels good about his upcoming title fight against Lopez.

At the same time Peñalosa said Donaire, who sparred for the first time Monday, looked extremely good in four rounds against undefeated flyweight Rodolfo Sumabong, who has a record of 7-0 with 3 knockouts.

Donaire is scheduled to defend his 112 pound title against former world light flyweight champion Eric Ortiz at the Araneta Coliseum on March 15 in a championship doubleheader with Brian Viloria taking on IBF light flyweight champion Ulises Solis in the fight card staged by Top Rank in cooperation with Solar Sports.
 
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