Now You Know Who Gerry Penalosa Is

(EMAILWIRE.COM, August 16, 2007 ) San Francisco, CA - In many respects, Gerry Penalosa was the fallen tree in the forest no one heard. Sure, take a trip to the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood and you'll hear Freddie Roach explain his fighter as the best technical boxer in Philippines. If you visit the Law Offices of Sydney J. Hall, former agent of Penalosa, he'll tell you no boxer could have beaten Penalosa in his prime. However, all the acclaim and respect Penalosa received within the boxing inside world, never translated where it counted-inside the boxing ring. ONLY PROBLEM WAS LACK OF OPPORTUNITY During the late 90's, the landscape of meaningful fights in the super flyweight (115 lbs.) division was Southeast Asia. All of the big money matches and world title fights took place in Korea or Japan. Penalosa had already lost his title in a disputed decision against In Joo Cho in South Korea. Therefore, Hall attempted to get Penalosa onto some HBO cards, sending him to the training camp of Roy Jones in Pensacola, Florida. Along with friend and fellow boxer Vernie Torres, Penalosa became an instant hit in Pensacola and Jones wanted to sign him to a promotional contract.TITLE FIGHTS ALL IN OPPONENT’S BACKYARDGerry had an opportunity to become a star in the United States, but instead chose revenge and a bigger purse in a rematch against Cho in South Korea. In that bout, Penalosa won at least seven rounds and hurt Cho many times. However, a questionable call by the referee, deducting one point from Penalosa for a wet corner, resulted in another disputed split decision loss.DIFFERENT COUNTRY, SAME BAD RESULTSIn 2000, Masamori Tokuyama took the title from Cho and fought Penalosa twice in Japan. While the opponent and country site was different, the results were the same Penalosa not doing enough to win (in the judges eyes) a decision in the champion’s hometown. In Penalosa's second attempt at Tokuyama, the champion repeatedly followed a long jab with a head butt that caused cuts around the eyes of Penalosa. Even with the questionable tactics, many ringsiders thought Penalosa did enough to win, but lost another split decision.PACMAN WAVE INSPIRED PENALOSA COMEBACKAt age 30, Penalosa decided to retire because he felt he could never win a decision against the current crop of connected-champs. Also, all of Penalosa’s title fights were negotiated under the purse bid, where his team always came up on the losing end. Therefore, the future title fights seemed impossible. It was not until the Manny Pacquiao wave hit the United States, that Penalosa found an opportunity to once again fight for a world title.PENALOSA SCHOOLED FLYWEIGHT MANNYPenalosa played the role of mentor towards Pacquiao during his rise through the flyweight division. The two sparred on many occasions with Penalosa usually coming out on top of the younger Pacquiao. You can imagine how the sparring sessions went, with the wild and aggressive Pacquiao trying to outwork the smooth counterpunching Penalosa. Many stories of both fighters trading knockdowns arose from those sessions. MASS MARKET FOR PHILIPPINE BOXING FANSObviously, despite Frances Fight Chick Martel's view, there is big and lively market of Philippine boxing fans. Over the past couple of years, Filipino fighters have been sprinkled all around PPV undercards on HBO and Showtime events. All of Pacquiao's PPV numbers went over 300,000 buys. And surprisingly, his third match with Eric Morales became of the highest attended indoor boxing event in Las Vegas history. Therefore, when the opportunity came for Golden Boy Promotions to add Penalosa to the Marco Antonio Barrera-Juan Manuel Marquez card in an attempt to attract the growing Philippine boxing fan base. DIFFERENT OPPONENT & SITE, SAME OLD RESULTSVery few gave Penalosa a realistic chance in defeating Daniel Ponce De Leon last March. It was going to be Gerry’s first fight at 122 lbs. against a fighter who could one day be a lightweight. Putting the promotional hat on, De Leon defeating Penalosa would set up a nice event against Rey Bautista, who at the time was scheduled for his own PPV appearance last May 5th. In the first round, De Leon, obviously agreeing with the expert predictions, tried to run through Penalosa. However, Penalosa exposed De Leon's technical errors. By the end of the fight, Penalosa had De Leon using his superior reach and activity instead of his destructive punching power. Penalosa lost a unanimous decision, but gained U.S media support by writers who had Penalosa winning the fight.ONE PUNCH BODY SHOT MEANS REVENGE FOR ALLLast Saturday, Gerry Penalosa knocked out Jhonny Gonzalez with one perfect left hand to the ribcage in the 7th round. The first six rounds of that bout featured Gonzalez maintaining his distance as Penalosa tried to get inside the reach and work to the head and body. Penalosa was not bouncing Gonzalez around the ring like he did against Cho and Tokuyama, nor did he make Gonzalez at time look like an amateur like he did against De Leon. Penalosa looked as if he conceded the fact that this would be a distance fight. It was not Penalosa’s best performance but it ended up being his defining moment and greatest victory.GERRY HAS CAREER MANY WILL NOT HAVEAt the post fight press conference, Penalosa, 35 years old, expressed that he would retire unless an opportunity to fight De Leon again occurs—this minutes after De Leon's first round knockout of Rey Bautista. A rematch with De Leon is interesting and makes a lot of sense. Assuming Penalosa fights De Leon again and retires, he'll retire as one of the greatest boxers to come out of the Philippines and more importantly a model of a career all fighters should follow. Manny Pacquiao, Luisito Espinosa, and Gerry Penalosa are living iconic figures to up and coming Filipino fighters. However, what separates Penalosa from Espinosa and Pacquiao are the controversies that surround most popular fighters. Penalosa had never been involved in any lawsuits nor has he public fallouts or burned bridges with former associates or handlers. He is a college graduate with businesses in the Philippines. GERRY NOT ALL BUSTED UP AT 35Penalosa has not suffered the long term damaging effects that Espinosa has suffered late in his career. All this, and no Filipino boxer have been shafted in as many title bouts as Penalosa. If I wrote this column two years ago, it would have gone unnoticed because Penalosa was unnoticed. Having only written 117 words out of over 1100 words on his fight with Gonzalez last Saturday, Penalosa would still have had a great even without the Penalosa's win last Saturday. The tree, which is Penalosa's career, in the forest still has fallen, but now thee people have heard it and they appreciated it. DID YOU HEAR RING TALK RADIO?"Oscar De La Hoya opened the show. Yes, he will fight again. MMA's Gina Carano talked about her "attitude" and fighting style. Freddie Roach, the trainer dropped a bomb on Manny Pacquiao, and Nonito Donaire, an upset winner in the KO of 2007 thus far, when he drilled Vic Darchinyan in July, Nonito was in da' house! GERRY TO APPEAR ON NEXT RADIO SHOWGerry Penalosa will appear on Ring Talk Radio this Sunday night at 9:06 PM PT. To listen LIVE, hit the Live Radio box at the top of this page. You are tuned to http://www.RingTalk.com.###This press release was issued through GroupWeb EmailWire.Com. For more information on press release distribution, go to http://www.emailwire.com.

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