{"id":36319,"date":"2014-12-23T17:44:35","date_gmt":"2014-12-23T09:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=36319"},"modified":"2014-12-23T17:44:35","modified_gmt":"2014-12-23T09:44:35","slug":"former-youngest-ph-world-champion-gets-big-break-in-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/12\/23\/former-youngest-ph-world-champion-gets-big-break-in-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Former youngest PH world champion gets big break in 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

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CEBU CITY — The country’s youngest ever boxing world champion at 19 years old, Marvin Sonsona, could be back in the limelight next year.<\/p>\n

Sonsona, who became a world champion with a unanimous decision win against Jose Lopez for the World Boxing Organization super flyweight title on Sept. 4, 2009 in just his 13th fight as a pro, is being eyed to take on the tough Jayson Velez in a World Boxing Council featherweight title eliminator bout.<\/p>\n

The winner of the bout between Sonsona (19-1, 15 Kos) and Velez (22-0-1, 16 Kos) will become the mandatory challenger of world champion Jhonny Gonzales (57-8, 48KOs).<\/p>\n

The veteran Gonzales has more knockout wins than the combined total fights of both Sonsona and Velez.<\/p>\n

“There is no date yet but that fight has been pending for a while and it will definitely happen next year,” said his manager Cebuano Samson Gello-ani.<\/p>\n

Sonsona has been on a comeback trail for years since losing his world title on the scales.<\/p>\n

In 2009, he blazed his way into Philippine boxing, coming out of nowhere to beat Jose Lopez (39-7-2) by unanimous decision to win the WBO 115-pound world title.<\/p>\n

After becoming a world champion at 19 years old, one month and two weeks, he became the latest toast of Philippine boxing.<\/p>\n

He even got compared to Manny Pacquiao, who won his first world title–the WBC 112-pound title–13 days before he turned 20 years old.<\/p>\n

Like Pacquiao, Sonsona is from General Santos City but has been training in Cebu.<\/p>\n

But before he could even start living up to the hype of being the next Pacman, he stumbled.<\/p>\n

He was forced to vacate his world title after coming up almost three pounds over the 115-pound limit in his first title defense against Alejandro Hernandez.<\/p>\n

Though the fight ended in a draw, one fight after becoming the youngest champion from the Philppines, Sonsona set another Philippine record by reigning for just two months and 17 days.<\/p>\n

Sonsona took a break for a month but started preparing again after he got another world title shot, this time for the WBO super bantamweight crown.<\/p>\n

To avoid the weight troubles that hounded him in the super flyweight division, his handlers decided to let him fight in the 122-pound division, skipping the 118-pound junior bantamweight division altogether.<\/p>\n

It still didn’t matter as Vazquez handed him his only loss so far, stopping the young Cebu-based fighter out of General Santos City in four rounds.<\/p>\n

And just like that, the once promising career of the young boxer ended.<\/p>\n

He picked up the pieces again, one year and eight months after his only loss and won a unanimous decision against Carlos Joan Jacobo (14-2-1), but that unanimous decision victory was far from impressive as Jacobo had been primarily fighting patsies before taking on Sonsona.<\/p>\n

Though Sonsona had two more tuneup bouts in small events in Cebu it seemed his career was going nowhere as the bouts came more than a year apart.<\/p>\n

He knocked out journeyman Carlos Fulgencio (19-6-1) in five rounds on March 17, 2012 and 18 months later, forced Jason Egera (21-8) to retire on Sept. 7, 2013 in a small event in Balamban.<\/p>\n

It was only this year that the boxer who earned the nickname Marvelous showed he still has it.<\/p>\n

On Feb. 22, he stopped one-time world challenger Akifumi Shimoda (28-4, 12KOs) in just three rounds for the WBO international featherweight title and on June 7, finally got back at his tormentor Vazquez with a sweet split decision win for the vacant North American Boxing Federation title.<\/p>\n

Sonsona knocked down Vazquez in the first round to win, 96-2, 96-92, in two cards, while the other judge had it 96-92 for Vazquez.<\/p>\n

Now 24 years old, Sonsona, who is now a grizzled veteran after seeing so many ups and downs in his career is 19-1, with 15 KOs.<\/p>\n

\u201c”He will be training in Manila and in Florida for his next bout under Jun Agrabio,” said Gello-ani.<\/p>\n

In 2015, he could get a shot against the dangerous Gonzales, a three-weight division champion from Mexico if he wins his next bout against Velez.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CEBU CITY — The country’s youngest ever boxing world champion at 19 years old, Marvin Sonsona, could be back in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":36367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,95,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ph","category-sports","mauthors-philippines-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}