The Cuneta Astrodome was barely half-full, but you wouldn’t know it from the cheers of the audience. I went to the card with two of the biggest boxing nuts among my friends, Alekos Orendain, whom you might remember as the resident reviewer of the HBO 24/7 series on the site, and Alex Tizon, a Pulitzer Prize-winning colleague who “has been punched in the face more often than any of [his] closest friends.” Each of them had to travel halfway across the metropolis on a fine Saturday morning in January just to spend the next several hours watching skinny men pummel each other.

It was no surprise to us, therefore, that the crowd was composed of fellow boxing nuts who, when not screaming at the action in the ring, were busy hooting and hollering at, and pretty much sexually-harassing, the round girls during breaks. Testosterone dripped heavily in the air.

Continue reading "Carlos Tamara rallies for the upset over Brian Viloria; Donnie Nietes, Jimrex Jaca, Jason Pagara win"

“The Hawaiian Punch” Brian Viloria defended his IBF light-flyweight championship in a unanimous decision over Mexican challenger Jesus Iribe. The bout was not particularly eventful, with Viloria outpointing his opponent by using his superior boxing skills. The victory did not come as a surprise, as boxing blogger Tim Starks noted prior to the fight: “Iribe went the distance with Edgar Sosa, so he's not a total softie, but he only won one round on three scorecards, so there's that. Even the unmotivated, wrong-headed version of Viloria that Brian seemed to banish with his defeat of Ulises Solis shouldn't have any trouble beating Iribe.”

Continue reading "Island Assault: Brian Viloria, AJ Banal outbox foes"

The Miguel Cotto-Joshua Clottey fight last Sunday was a barnburner, with Cotto surviving a nasty cut on his left eyebrow to eke out a split decision victory over his Ghanaian challenger.

Continue reading "Boxing weekend starring Miguel Cotto, Joshua Clottey, Rodel Mayol, Ivan Calderon and Floyd Mayweather"

New York City is abuzz on the eve of the Puerto Rican Day Parade, as Puerto Rican welterweight champion Miguel Cotto headlines a card at the World's Most Famous Arena against Ghanaian challenger Joshua Clottey. The undercard features junior flyweight champion Ivan Calderon against Filipino bomber Rodel Mayol.

Continue reading "Quick programming note: Cotto-Clottey, Calderon-Mayol"

Boxing champions Nonito Donaire and Brian Viloria, fresh off their twin victories in April's "The Flash and the Furious" card at the Araneta Coliseum, are looking to bring their brand of Filipino awesome to San Francisco fight fans. The Manila Bulletin is reporting that Top Rank's Bob Arum is reportedly looking at an August 22 date in the Bay Area, to draw the same fans who showed Manny Pacquiao mad love during the San Francisco Giants' Filipino heritage night last month.

Continue reading "Nonito Donaire, Brian Viloria to take their thunder to the Bay Area"

Now that's what Twitter is for! Brian Viloria had a series of very interesting tweets today about his dinner with Top Rank promoter Bob Arum.

Stuff, for example, like what Arum really thinks about Hatton's chances tomorrow versus Pacquiao: "Manny should destroy Hatton... worse than Diaz... Even worse than De La Hoya."

Continue reading "Brian Viloria tweets about dinner with Bob Arum"

Quinito Henson was part of the broadcast of last week's Viloria-Solis fight, alongside play-by-play guy Chino Trinidad and boxing analyst Mike Ochosa. I'm paraphrasing the following exchange during the third round of the fight, but it totally exposed how little Quinito knows about boxing.

Continue reading "The week in Quinito Henson annoyance"

I appreciate the fact that new IBF junior flyweight champion Brian Viloria is embracing new media, Twitter in particular, but this particular post seems like a bad idea.

Continue reading "Brian Viloria probably sharing too much information"

Solar Sports marketing head Jude Turcuato reports that "The Flash and the Furious" card that featured victories by Nonito Donaire and Brian Viloria was a commercial success. It was a risky proposition for Solar to promote the fight in the first place, given that neither Donaire nor Viloria have the star power of Manny Pacquiao.

Then there was the live event. A television broadcast is one thing, but the logistics of organizing, and more importantly, monetizing an event like a boxing card in Manila can be a daunting task. Broadcast giant ABS-CBN tried it with their "Invasion" card which they co-promoted with Golden Boy Promotions, and as Turcuato himself pointed out, they barely filled up half the Big Dome.

Continue reading "Solar flare: Business booms for Donaire, Viloria fights"

Fire Quinito gathers all the essential reading for the Viloria-Donaire knockouts, so you can save time to gawk at Zac Efron's waxed eyebrows and washboard abs.

Continue reading "Boxing mop-up: Donaire and Viloria"