Explosion in LA

LOS ANGELES — Fill in the blank.

____________________ knocked out his opponent in the boxing extravaganza held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles last Sept.10, 2005.

(A) Rey "Boom-Boom" Bautista

(B) Brian "Hawaiian Punch" Viloria

(C) Manny "Pacman" Pacquiao.

The answer: All of the above.

It was a victorious night in downtown LA last Saturday night (Sunday morning in Manila) as the three Filipino fighters who showed up for Top Rank’s "Double Trouble" came out and KO’d their way to victory in their respective matches.

Bautista opened the event by knocking out Felix Flores Murillo, stopping the 31-year-old Colombian in the third round of their scheduled eight-round encounter.

In the first round, Bautista, who weighed in at 118 lbs., seemed tentative. He wasn’t throwing his jabs. He wasn’t using the combinations he practiced for months under the guidance of esteemed trainer Freddie Roach. Murillo, who was two pounds heavier, put up an aggressive stance early on. But "Boom-Boom" picked up the pace in the second round. By the third round, his combinations were already coming together. And at 1:12 of round, Bautista knocked out Murillo, making his LA-debut a very successful one.

"Alam ko na matatalo ko siya. Pero may pacing pa din ako, palagi kasing may lakas yung kalaban ko. Nakumpara ko siya sa mga nakaraan kong kalaban. Pag tatama siya sa akin, parang mayayanig din ako e. Hindi katulad nu’ng ibang laban ko." Bautista candidly answered questions from the international press at the Chick Hearn Press Room where he and his US agent Michael Koncz.

Before the match, Bautista’s camp raised concerns that Murillo might fight dirty. And Bautista prepared for this by training even harder.

"It’s something that he has to experience. The guy’s a dirty fighter. But if he gets too dirty, the referee’s in charge. There are rules, of course. But thing is I won’t really call it dirty. He’s physical, he’s rough. But you got to run into that in fighting guys from Mexico or Columbia. But that’s a fact he has to learn to accept. But he’s got a little meanness in him, too. He’ll know how to handle it. He actually has a better mean streak than Manny. Manny is a bit too passive. Bautista, if you foul him, he’ll get back at you," Roach said in an interview at his Wild Card Gym a few weeks before the fight.

"Basta hindi lang siya tatakbo, tatamaan din. Pag nakipag-holding siya sa akin, ire-wrestling ko siya. Pero sabi sa akin, laruin ko lang din, pag nag-dirty fighter siya, huwag ako magmalinis," he said a few weeks ago. He was concerned, but he was definitely unfazed.

During the short match, Bautista was also at the receiving end of some serious blows, biggest of which were a hook to the body in the second round and some blows to the left side of his face. But he endured them all for that decisive win

"Hindi ko in-expect na maaga pa lang, mapapatumba ko na. Masayang-masaya ako ngayon. I want to go back to the Philippines because I miss my family. But I want to come back to America and fight again," he said.

And it would be soon as Koncz said Bautista is scheduled to fight in Las Vegas in the near future. "Rey doesn’t know. But Tony (Aldeguer, Bautista’s Cebu-based manager) and I have been talking. He’s scheduled to fight at the Aladdin Casino Hotel in Las Vegas. We’re going to talk more with Top Rank but we were sure that if his performance was good here, we would have a bout there," Koncz said. "The opponent was a good opponent. I don’t want to take anything away from him. But it was like a sparring session for Rey. He didn’t exert all his energy." Bautista’s management team believes that he needs to "strike it while it’s hot."

"Na-miss ko na rin ‘yung sa atin pero kailangan tayo magsakripisyo para maging world champion," Bautista said in an interview prior to the fight. And in this aspect, Koncz has no worries.

"He has such phenomenal work ethic. He’s stayed in my house for a month, I found out that he’s a kid with good character. But after living with him for a month, he’s just so humble, polite, trying to please all the time, he’s got great character," Bautista’s agent said, adding that because of these, "Boom-Boom" has great chances of making it to the top and perhaps even surpass Manny Pacquiao.

"I’ve always said before that Manny’s a good friend of mine and I like him and I respect him. But I strongly believe that Rey has a potential to be a bigger star than Manny. For the same reason that they have the same style, same heart, same ethic, but Rey can knock you out with any hand," he concluded.

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