People know of Donaire, Elorde, Villa and Pacquiao. One of the Philippine warriors they don't know about, is this man. Gerry Penalosa. He was a fighter's fighter. One who's technical skills left other fighters in awe, and turned all heads who were in the gym when he worked the pads or sparred. He was a small southpaw, who stood in the pocket. He's a very unique fighter. Highly entertaining for purists and appreciators of skills. A very tidy southpaw pressure fighter, who's defence came first but only to set up his offense. Pay some respect to one of the most well balanced, calm, tough and brave men you'll ever see in a ring.
A brilliant battle, where you can see all the full array of Penalosa's extensive skillset. Rojas turned out to be a pretty good fighter, as well. He often lost to the best around, but he did win a title, and beat Kohei Kono amd Jhonny Gonzalez. His best performance IMO.
I feel Kawashima was his best performance, considering how good Kawashima was. But yes, he was also brilliant in his next fight against Lee.
I'm gonna watch the Cho and Tokuyama fights tomorrow. My memory of Tokuyama is very thin, and it doesn't paint him in a good light. So I'll make sure to watch out for that. And as I recall, the Cho fights were disgusting decisions. I long thought Penalosa should have been undefeated going into the Juanma fight. Never seen the Morel fight, though.
Can you imagine how good some of the fights which could have happened at bantamweight? Rafa, Hasegawa, Moreno, Nish, etc; and if he fought Sahaprom, I don't know whether I'd jizz in my pants or just spontaneously combust. Probably both.
Today, I rewatched both Cho fights, and had Penalosa winning 8 rounds in each. I also watched the Kawashima fight. I thought Kawa could have been given the fifth and sixth rounds. I didn't give him either though. It was a brilliant performance, although I maintain that Lee was a better one, albeit against a much worse opponent. Will watch the fights with Tokuyuma later on. Does anyone wanna weigh in how fights with Inoue and Donaire would go down?
Hard to say because Inoue hasn't faced an elite, prime opponent. Donaire, I figure outworks Gerry. Penalosa would have to be careful opening up given Nonito's wicked handspeed and power. He probably gets a bit gun-shy.
Confession. Only ever seen the Gonzalez come from behind KO. As far as come from behind KOs go, it was one for the books.
Damn, I'd have thought you'd have seen loads. That fight isn't representative of his skills IMO. At 115, pre-retirement, he was way harder to out-box. His counters cut people's workrates in half as well. He actually reminds me a bit of a southpaw Canelo. Much more skilled of course.
Actually, thinking about it. I'd say he's the most skilled Philippine fighter ever. Elorde and Pacquiao were extremely skilled as well, but neither had the technical mastery of the fundamentals that Gerry had IMO, and neither's array of tools outside of the basics were as extensive as Penalosa's either.
And I've just watched the second Tokuyama fight again, since the first doesn't seem to be available any more. I had it 117-111 Penalosa. Tokuyuma was more skilled than Cho, and a better fighter as he demonstrated, but he just didn't land clean. Even his jab fell short. His hooks sailed over head. His cross was met with a counter. My opinion of him has gone up quite a bit though. It seemed I was getting him mixed up with Cho when I made any running comments. Cho ran much more. Masamori actually stood his ground a lot more than I expected. I found the Morel fight on Asian Boxing, so I'll watch that before I go back to work as well.
He’s one of my blind spots. I didn’t think the Gonzalez fight was representative of a prime version, but it did say a lot about him in the power, durability, and mental strength aspects.
I think it actually flattered him in terms of power. He wasn't a very hard puncher, just extremely precise. Great technique, timing and speed means he you don't wanna get hit by him, but he's not a Donaire-esque puncher by any means. He's not coldcock KOing anybody world class. It's just that Gonzalez had the durability of a sickly child.
I've never seen enough film of actual Elorde wins to properly handicap. Getting taken apart twice by a master like Ortiz doesn't do it. So of those I've seen, yes, Gerry was more skilled than Pac and Donaire. Unfortunately for Gerry, one was an exceptional physical talent and the other is a top 5-10 all time physical talent.
I wouldn't say Nietes is more skilled, but there's two caveats. I haven't seen all too much of Donnie, in the two or three fights I've seen he showed good skills but not Penalosa level. And we may need to entertain the notion that I might not be completely unbiased.
