Panamanian boxing at the moment

Panama gets a new world boxing champ
by Eric Jackson

There are various ways to count --- do we included interim champions, or count each different title that a single person has won as another champion, or count women boxers? --- but by most calculations Anselmo "Chemito" Moreno is Panama's 25th world boxing champion.

On May 31 in Dusseldorf Moreno came out on the offensive in the first three rounds, putting the champ Wladimir Sidorenko in clear trouble. The latter made his adustments, won the fourth, sixth, seventh and eighth rounds, and then in the ninth and tenth the Ukrainian and the Panamanian fought pretty evenly. By the late rounds, however, it appeared that Moreno had worn Sidorenko down. The challenger clearly won the 11th and 12th rounds to end the fight, and the judges gave him their unanimous decision and the WBA bantamweight championship.

Also that same day in Germany, in recognition of the good times that Panamanian boxing is experiencing, the International Boxing Federation decided to hold its May 2009 world convention here.

Panama is in something of a golden age of boxing, although probably with a fewer carats than in the 1970s. At the moment we have one other world champion, Celestino “Pelenchin” Caballero, who holds the WBA super-bantamweight title and is being frustrated in his attempts to get matches with the other organizations' champs in his class so as to become an undisputed champion if he can. On June 7 Cabellero dominated Venezuela's Lorenzo "Lencho" Parra until finally scoring the TKO over him in the 12th round of a mismatch he only accepted because he couldn't get the bout he wanted.

Caballero is talking about the possibility of moving up to a heavier classification or may have to settle for a bout with another Panamanian, Ricardo "El Maestrito" Córdoba. The latter himself twice fought Sidorenko to draws in title fights in Germany and is ranked as the WBA's number two bantamweight challenger.

Meanwhile, former junior flyweight champion Roberto "La Araña" Vásquez, who moved up to a heavier class and fell short in a title shot, has been having trouble keeping his weight within limits, having flunked his past two weigh-ins. Do not, however, count him as a has-been just yet.

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