Get back on your feet

AJ Banal’s knockout loss to Rafel “El Torito” Concepcion last Saturday remains very fresh in my memory.  I never expected the bout to end that way.  In fact, I was hoping there would be a reason to toast a few bottles of brew after that bout.

I was actually in a double date last weekend as my wife and I were with my compadre and one of the country’s top sportswriters Al Mendoza and his wife Sol.

Pareng Al and Mareng Sol flew in from Manila to watch the bout and I was very happy to join them as it was also some sort of a celebration for me and my wife, who recently passed the Nurses board examinations.

The Cebu Coliseum hasn’t changed much from the last time that I was there for a boxing event.  In fact, it never fails to break my heart when I am in the place because a prime city like Cebu lacks a good venue for major sporting events.

It was a double heart breaker when Banal fell on all fours and was counted out by the American referee.  It was shocking, but then there were signs earlier in the bout that Banal would need to scrape the bottom of the pot to pull a victory.

Concepcion came as the better prepared fighter and for AJ, I hope this failure would not dash his hopes of someday making it bigger in the ring.

One thing that many boxing fans probably do not know is that our fighters dread fighting the Cebu Coliseum.  It is not because of the decrepit condition of the arena, but the pressure from the Cebuano boxing fans, who are so hard to please.

Try asking any Cebuano boxer and if he’ll be honest with you, he’ll tell you that he’d rather fight elsewhere than the Cebu Coliseum.

There is still more to come for the career of AJ Banal and I hope the young man, would in no time, get back to his feet and start training again.

To AJ remember these lines from Don’t Quit: “Success is failure turned inside out, the silver tint in the clouds of doubt.”

You can turn things around young man, just stay focused on your goals.

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Simoun Canton, Jr. my good friend from Philippine Airlines sent me email yesterday about a 66-year-old man, who scored a hole-in-one twice in one round of golf.

This is the story from Associated Press:

GAYLORD, Mich. — For somebody who’d been playing golf 50 years and never had a hole-in-one, Bob Hickey got the hang of it quickly. The 66-year-old Grayling man used a 7-iron to card his first-ever ace Thursday on the 167-yard 10th hole at Marsh Ridge in Gaylord. Then Hickey used an 8-iron to ace the 147-yard 17th hole.

According to a 2000 Golf Digest article cited by the Traverse City Record-Eagle, the odds of one player making two holes-in-one during the same round are 67 million to 1.

Hickey, who finished at 2-over-par 74, says he’d made two eagles but never came close to a hole-in-one before Thursday. The long-haul trucker says he thinks he benefited from “just pure luck.”

I remain dreaming of my first hole-in-one and witnessing my second.  It was almost ten years ago when I witnessed the only ace scored by a flightmate of mine in the Christmas Fun Golf Classic of Alta Vista.

My compadre Michael Go’s ace remains fresh in my mind.

Thanks Jun for that email, it surely made me feel like going to the golf course more often so I could make a real ace to top that one I made in a computer game.

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MILESTONES: Belated birthday greetings to my buddy Carl Senen Veloso of Azilrac Foods and Pomeroy, who turned a year older yesterday.

The same goes to Joan Villahermosa, who celebrated her birthday last July 29.

More power!