Confirmed: Boom Boom on de la Hoya-Pacquiao undercard
By RONNIE NATHANIELSZ | 09/09/2008 10:44 PM
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World Boxing Organization Intercontinental super bantamweight champion Rey “Boom Boom” Bautista will see action on the undercard of Filipino ring icon Manny Pacquiao’s battle with “Golden Boy” Oscar de la Hoya at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on December 6.
In an overseas telephone conversation Tuesday (Manila Time), Golden Boy Promotions (GBP) vice-president and international matchmaker Eric Gomez confirmed the fight will take place and that he had already spoken to Michael Aldeguer of the famed ALA Gym of Cebu.
Gomez had said last week that GBP was going to put Bautista on the show. “[We're] trying to get him a good fight against someone in the rankings, someone who could give him a good fight.”
Gomez said this would be the first time a Filipino will fight on a de La Hoya undercard promoted by GBP.
Pacquiao himself won the IBF super bantamweight title in a spectacular sixth round stoppage of Lelhonolo Ledwaba on the undercard of the de la Hoya-Javier Castillejo light middleweight title fight at the MGM Grand on June 23, 2001. The fight card was promoted by Top Rank, Inc.
Gomez said GBP had confidence in Bautista. He, however, said Bautista will “not going after a world champion for his next fight." "[We] want to do a fight that is important to set him up for his next couple of fights before fighting for the title.”
Top Rank promoter Bob Arum earlier told www.insidesports.ph he had no objections at all to Bautista fighting on the undercard. He said if they were interested he could always fight WBO champion Juan Manuel Lopez. Bautista, however, seems not yet ready to battle a fighter of the caliber of Lopez.
Lopez won the WBO 122-pound title with a stunning first round knockout of the menacing Daniel Ponce de Leon, who had himself stopped Bautista in the first round in the Philippines-Mexico World Cup on August 11, 2007 in Sacramento, California .
