Randy Petalcorin focused on world title shot in 2018
By Anthony Cocks
Randy Petalcorin feels he is on the verge of something big.
The 25-year-old junior flyweight contender has just been elevated to IBF #3 and WBO #4 to go along with his WBC number nine ranking, putting him as close as one fight away from another world title opportunity.
The soft-spoken, hard-hitting Filipino doesn’t waste any words when asked what his goals are for 2018.
"To win my second major world title at light flyweight," says Petalcorin, 28-2-1 (21), who was crowned interim WBA junior flyweight champion with a 7th round TKO of Panamanian Walter Tello in Shanghai, China three years ago.
Petalcorin rates that victory as a career highlight.
"My best win was for the WBA world title in 2014 against Walter Tello from Panama because Tello had fought for three world titles and he had far more experience than me at the world championship level,” says Petalcorin.
“But to knockout Tello in seven rounds and win the WBA world title in front of 20,000 people 180 million on live TV in China including Bob Arum, Manny Pacquiao and Freddie Roach watching was a dream come true for me in Shanghai on a Top Rank promoted card. I have to thank Peter Maniatis and Sean Gibbons and Sanman Gym and JC Boy Manangquil for making it happen."
Petalcorin returned to China to defend the title against fellow southpaw Yiming Ma the following year. He sent the Chinese challenger to the canvas three times in the opening frame to retain his title in less than two minutes of violent, fast-paced action.
The talented lefty, who originally hails from Davao City but now resides in General Santos City, has been likened in some quarters to former eight division world champion and national hero Manny Pacquiao. But while Petalcorin is flattered by the comparison, he says Pacquiao is a one-in-a-lifetime talent.
"l was in training camp in 2011 in Baguio for the [Shane] Mosley fight with Manny,” Petalcorin says. “We were running partners and Manny was in my corner to support me when I won the WBA [interim] world title in 2014, but there is only one Manny Pacquiao. I am humbled to be likened to Manny of course, I study him."
Last year’s “Super Fly” boxing card on HBO Boxing After Dark program was broadly hailed as a success and brought much needed exposure to one of the lighter weight classes with three evenly matched bouts on the telecast featuring some of the top talent in the division. But for most of the smaller guys who box below 115 pounds there simply isn’t the platform available to showcase the plethora of talent that exists in those lighter weight classes.
This lack of exposure means that the purses on offer are typically smaller and the top ranked fighters are forced to fight each other more often, ironically making for more competitive scraps, which is what boxing fans are always crying out for.
Petalcorin is the personification of that predicament.
"l will fight who my manager Peter Maniatis tells me to fight,” says Petalcorin. “We already challenged (IBF titleholder Milan) Melindo and (WBA titleholder Ryoichi) Taguchi to fight the winner after New Years Eve if the fight can be made.
“It’s up to my management. There is also (WBO titleholder) Angel Acosta and (WBC titleholder) Ken Shiro [and I] would love to fight any of the champions in 2018.
"Every world champion is hard to beat, is a big challenge. But it’s a challenge I am ready for and I won the WBA [interim] world title at 22 years of age in Shanghai so I understand the level required here to be a world champion again. They are all different and hard to beat."
Australia has become a home away from home for Petalcorin, with promoter and manager Peter Maniatis taking the young Filipino under his wing and featuring him on a number of his shows at the Malvern Town Hall in Melbourne since 2013. In his most recent outing Petalcorin was back on Australian soil making mincemeat of Indonesian Oscar Raknafa, destroying him in less than a round. A body shot did the damage with the 13-16 journeyman going down heavy and hard and needing a trip to the local hospital for observation immediately after the fight.
As an opponent Raknafa might not have been much, but Petalcorin’s performance was everything you would expect from a legitimate world title contender: swift, brutal and devastating.
"The highlight for me in 2017 was coming back to Australia, my second home, to fight two-time Indonesian champion Oscar Rafnaka who has gone the distance with WBO world champion Kosei Tanaka in Japan,” says Petalcorin.
“Oscar also has a win over former WBA world champion Muhammad Rachman so to blast him out and send him to hospital in one round was great."
While Raknafa came in heavy for the fight, Petalcorin displayed his professionalism to ensure the fight still went ahead.
"The last fight I was eating buffet the night before the weigh-in just to go up in weight because Oscar was a super flyweight and turned up overweight to Australia,” says Petalcoirn, who scaled a career-high 115 pounds against Rafnaka but has fought as low as 105 pounds in the past.
“I will fight any weight and anyone my manager tells me to. It’s my job, I trust him [but] my correct weight is light flyweight, 108 pounds."
Petalcorin started boxing at the tender age of nine in the same year his countryman Pacquiao made his USA debut against Lehlo Ledwaba for the IBF super bantamweight title on the undercard of Oscar De La Hoya vs Javier Castillejo and boxed over 100 amateur contests before joining the punch-for-pay ranks as a 17-year-old. Now, after eight years in the pros, he believes he is hitting his physical prime and says that boxing fans will see the best of him in the next five years of his career.
“We always plan to win on points and a knockout is always a bonus,” says Petalcorin, who has mastered a savage two-fisted body attack to compliment his powerful head shots. “I like to mix up my levels of punches so my opponent does not know what direction I will punch, body or head.
"l like to say my greatest weapon is my speed and power and defense. I like to think a lot in the ring set up traps for my opponents as my idol was Gerry Penalosa and Manny Pacquiao, who were both very smart great fighters."
While many Filipino fight fans are still coming to terms with Pacquiao’s loss to Aussie Jeff Horn in what was supposed to be a routine defence of his WBO welterweight world title in Brisbane back in July, Petalcorin says that although the result was a surprise he holds no grudge against Horn for doing what every prizefighter is expected to so.
"This was a big shock to us all because no one really knew Horn and we always expect Manny to win the fight,” says Petalcorin. “But well done Jeff Horn, he fought his heart out and great win and I hear his name all the time when I am in Australia."
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