INVASION BORICUA

PUERTO RICO LOOKS FOR NEXT BOXING HERO!

By Manny Caballero 

KEEPING THE PUERTO RICAN DAY PARADE TRADITION ALIVE

Caguas P.R. The last two months have been hard for Puerto Rico in the world of boxing; it’s been on a losing streak to their archrival Mexico, losing three champions to them. Also two future stars came short trying to become title holders. What hurts the Puerto Rican community the most was losing those three champions which left them with a lone champion Miguel Cotto. Now the hunt is on the island to find the next boxing star. During the weekend of the P.R
parade Felix “Tito” Trinidad (42-3, 35KOs) and Miguel Cotto (36-2,28KOs) used to have a fight, and on its weekend June 10 and 11 ESPN and Showtime will be having Boricua invasion where we will get a chance to see Puerto Rico’s rising stars.

MEXICO TAKES THE LEAD IN RIVALRY

The first to fall was Ivan Calderon (34-2-1, 6KOs) losing a 6 years title reign to Giovanni Segura, Orlando Salido (57-6-2, 43KOs) going to P.R and beating Juan Manuel Lopez (30-1, 27KOs) by TKO in 8 and taking his 126 lb title in the process was a loss the Puerto Rican didn’t take lightly, but the icing on the cake was Jorge Arce mauling Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. like an old pit-bull on a puppy, they didn’t only lose there belts but their undefeated records too, but to make matters worse those three losses came on the hands of Mexico. Cesar Seda Jr (20-1, 15KOs) also came short when he went to Argentina trying to take Omar Andre Narvaez (33-1-2, 19KOs) title losing by UD, Francisco Palacio (20-1, 13KOs) was the other from P.R who lost by SD in Poland to Krypton Wlodarczky (45-2-1, 32KOs).

 TEAM PUERTO RICO

Where there’s rain sun soon follows. The island may have only one champion, but there are a hand full of new boxers ready to become one. One that’s promoted by Cotto promotions that’s next in line for a title shot is Luis “el Artesano” Cruz (18-0, 14KOs) an exciting fighter, great counterpuncher and good boxing skill, should be fighting for Ricky Burn’s (32-2, 8KOs) 130lb title soon. Jonathan “Mantequilla” butter Gonzales (13-0, 13KOs) will be fighting on the June 11 card, a promising prospect promoted by trio Javier Bustello, Gary Shaw, Warriors Boxing but leading their pack is Thomas Dulorme (11-0, 10KOs) all though he wasn’t born in Puerto Rico but consider one of our own, Dulorme has an exciting style and has KO power he has a fight on ESPN on June 10,don’t miss him. Also fighting on ESPN is Kenny Galarza (14-1, 14KOs) he has an extensive amateur career with over 300 fights at age 16 won gold medal and silver at junior Olympic and won silver at pan American games in 2005. Hector Sanchez (19-0, 19KOs) he’s 6 foot two inches tall and fights at 140lbs, tall for that weight class, knows how to use his reach and fight tall, he will fight on Showtime on June 11 a must see. Also fighting that night is Orlando del Valle (12-0, 10KOs) and two other boxers that are still young but very gifted are Amateur champion, gold medal winner in central American and Caribbean games Jose Pedraza (2-0, 2KOs) he fights on June 10 and Jonathan “Bomba” Gonzalez(2-0, 2KOs).