ROCKY Fuentes (Philboxing.com).
ALA Boxing Gym’s “Road Warrior,” former world title challenger Rocky Fuentes, wrapped up his near four-month training in Cebu in preparation for his New Year’s eve showdown against Japanese Shohei Omori in Kyoto, Japan.
Peter Cuizon, Fuentes’ trainer, said his ward is now a hundred percent ready for the Japanese bantamweight champion who has a record of 17-1-0 (win-loss-draw) with 12 knockout victories.
The 30-year-old Fuentes, who sports a 35-8-2, 20KO record, will face the Japanese in an eight-round non-title showdown at the Shimazu Arena.
“He’s had enough training because he started training last September so he’s very prepared for this fight,” Cuizon said.
Fuentes was initially preparing for a scheduled fight in the USA last Dec. 10. But that bout was cancelled. The ALA ward continued to train because there was an offer to fight Omori.
Cuizon said they had to make adjustments in Fuentes’ training to come up with the perfect fight plan against Omori.
“He first prepared and trained for the fight in the US, so we changed his training and game plan [when the fight was cancelled]. Omori is known to be a slugger so we have to adjust a bit Rocky’s strategy for this fight,” Cuizon said.
This will be Fuentes’ eighth time to fight in Japan. In his last fight there in 2014 for the WBC World Flyweight title, Fuentes lost to pound-for-pound king Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzales by technical knockout.
Cuizon, an ALA Boxing Gym veteran trainer, admitted that the fight against Omori will be a very tough for Fuentes. But he is confident that the latter will prevail.
Fuentes’ last fight was in April at the Cebu City Sports Center (CCSC), where he won by majority decision over fellow Filipino Romnick Magos.