GETTING WHAT he wished for the past two years, former world superflyweight champion Gerry Peñalosa bamboozled a spirited but outclassed Dario Azuaga of Paraguay in their 10-round non-title bout enroute to a convincing win Saturday night at the Ynares Center in Antipolo City.
At 33, Peñalosa still managed to display his awesome jabs and precise combinations that made his Paraguayan look like a dim-witted boxer the whole bout.
After giving his foe a workshop in the first seven rounds, Peñalosa floored Azuaga in the 8th round with a left-right combination then scored another knockdown in the 9th with a four-punch combo to the delight of more than a thousand paying crowd who braved the nighttime drizzle.
The 31-year-old Azuaga managed to get up in both occasions and then wisely danced around the ring in the 10th canto to frustrate Peñalosa who at that point was already primed to go for the kill.
The match eventually went to the scorecards with all three judges grading the bout 100-88.
Despite the lopsided win Peñalosa appeared satisfied with win unlike in his last two fights against two patsy Thai rivals.
Going into the fight, Azuaga boasts of a menacing 66-6-2 win-loss-draw record with 57 knockouts, 25 of which came in the first round.
Peñalosa now 49-5-2 with 33 KO’s, captured the WBCsuperflyweight crown from Hiroshi Kawashima in February 1997 and defended it three times before losing it to Korean In Joo Cho in 1998.
The Negros-born Peñalosa had three botched title hunts, losing by close decisions to Cho in 2000 and Japanese adversary Masamori Tokuyama in 2001 and 2002, forcing the stylish southpaw into a 21-month hiatus.
