Bleacher Talk

Bleacher Talk July 25, 2008 Making a World Title Fight 2 The headline for today will have to be copied from that of three weeks ago as a minor bump on the road surfaced on AJ “Bazooka” Banal’s path to a world championship. If my forecast is right, AJ Banal won the WBA super flyweight championship last night by knock-out in the middle rounds just as we were going into press for today’s issue. If Rafa Concepcion didn’t change his style from that which we saw from a previous fight, then Banal will tear him up real bad. Concepcion is called “El Torito” or little bull since he fights like a bull, always going forward and not afraid to get hit. He uses his power to get the job done and is not known to be a technical type of a boxer with finesse and classy moves. This type of boxer is a perfect match for Banal’s combination of excellent boxing skills, power and ring maturity. Concepcion comes at you with his punches coming from wild angles via hooks and overhand rights. His jab looks more lik...

Bleacher Talk July 20, 2008 Shortcut to Vegas We’ve all heard about the lights, glitz and glamour of Vegas, but how many of us have actually been there? We all have our personal reasons to go there, and so do the many local blue chip prospects of boxing who are aching to set foot on the of boxing capital of the world. Thanks to Manny Pacquiao, Philippine boxing is now recognized as a good source of world-class boxers, and the international boxing market is now in search of more Pinoys who can light up the rings of Vegas. But how does one get there? Through the years of Philippine boxing, the traditional and usual way of doing things was to go for a Philippine championship. A national championship automatically meant being rated by the Oriental and Pacific Boxing Federation (OPBF) that also serves as the regional arm of the World Boxing Council (WBC). A boxer would then have to win an OPBF championship if he wanted to be recognized by the WBC or any of the other international boxing bod...

CEIV poses with their trophy. Edmund, Roy, Venci, Atan, Brigs, Jun,Moncabs, Allan, Jojo, Buchoy Atan splits between Bong & Raul to score inside... Edmund receives trophy from Venci. Jojo scores inside. Bong boxes out

CEIV Wins Mondays Liga Cebu Engineering and Industrial Ventures (CEIV) blew hot and cold before toppling top seed Team Monterroyo, 52-47, to bag the championship of the Mondays Liga 2008. CEIV leaned on the hot hands of Edmund Odulio in the first quarter to control the tempo of the game, taking an 18-7 lead going into the second period. CEIV maintained control of the game to take a 33-19 lead at halftime, this time with Roy Aznar leading the charges of City of Naga Councilor Venci del Mar. Team Monterroyo, however, had other things in mind as they staged a rally, bouncing back in the third quarter with Bong Paculaba stepping up, slashing CEIV’s lead down to 39-31 after three periods. Team Monterroyo’s steady rally continued in the fourth quarter as they managed to control the tempo of the game and gained the much-needed momentum with Eric Nepomuceno at the helm. Team Monterroyo cut the lead down to only three at 47-50, with 22 seconds left in the game, but then went blank with their tr...

Bleacher Talk July 12, 2008 A Fraction of F1 Driving a Formula 1 race car in our lifetime is already accepted as an impossible dream. We’re resigned to watching the races on TV and can only stare in awe at the speed, skills and all the fanfare that comes along with F1 racing. But feeling like an F1 driver for a day isn’t too far-fetched now, is it? If you want to feel like an F1 race car driver, go to Kartzone in Panagdait and you’ll know what I mean. In our drive to know more about the events that we cover and read about, the Sportswriters Association of Cebu City Inc. got a feel of kart racing or karting, thanks to Atty. Jess Garcia. The main objective of Bleacher Talk was to relate with what F1 TV commentators talk about when they analyze a live race. One thing is to hear and listen to the analysis, but doing it is a totally enriching thing as we found out at Kartzone. I’ve had the chance to connect both TV analysis and an actual game experience in events such as basketball, badmint...

Team Monterroyo, CEIV in Finals of Mondays Liga Team Monterroyo and Cebu Engineering and Industrial Ventures (CEIV) squeezed themselves into the finals of the Mondays Liga 2008 with heart-stopping wins on the last day of the tournament’s double-round robin elimination phase. Team Monterroyo nipped LCP Garments, 58-56 in overtime, while CEIV bowed to Team-C 62-65, but made it to the finals via the quotient based tiebreaker. In what turned out as a repeat of its first round game which was decided also in overtime, Team Monterroyo banked on its torrid three-point shooting and excellent field goal shooting to outlast an undermanned LCP squad. John Tantay stepped up in crunch time, scoring all his treys in the fourth quarter and overtime just as LCP seemed to grab the momentum. With LCP up by one 52-51, Tantay swished a trey to give Monterroyo a 54-52 lead with 26 seconds left in the game. Mario Camingao however replied with his medium range jumper with 12 seconds left to send the game into...

Bleacher Talk July 6, 2008 Making a World Title Fight I‘ve always been curious of how Pinoy boxers get that much-sought after chance to fight in a world championship and end up living up to the dreams that they made when they were young upstarts. Some have been there, while some haven’t. There are even talks of how many Pinoy boxers who have the legitimate potential to become world champions never even get a chance to challenge for a world championship fight due to a number of forces beyond their control: politics, breaks and at times, plain luck. But times today have changed ever since a boxer named Manny Pacquiao stepped up to the plate to deliver a homerun for Philippine boxing. Ever since Pacquiao scored a major breakthrough, Pinoy boxing is now on the map and is getting the attention of the international boxing scene. Nonito Donaire, Donnie Nietes and Florante Condes proudly carried the colors of the country when they won their world championships, while the recent forays of Berna...