LAS Vegas—Gerry Peñalosa fought without fear. The 35-year-old counterpuncher defied his age, often beating his younger Mexican opponent to the punch. Dodging wave after wave of punches, Peñalosa many times forced his foe to backpedal during heated exchanges.
In the end, all this wasn’t enough, in the judges’ eyes, at least.
Daniel Ponce De Leon of Mexico retained his WBO 122-pound title with a unanimous decision over the Filipino on Saturday.
Two judges scored it 119-109 for De Leon and the third had it 120-108. The heavily pro-De Leon crowd at Mandalay Bay jeered the decision.
Rematch
“I’m really disappointed,” said Peñalosa, who dropped to 51-6-2. “I thought I won that fight. I want a rematch.”
De Leon (31-1 with 28 knockouts) never landed his trademark knockout punch against the game Peñalosa, a Cebuano from San Carlos City.
“It was a very tough fight,” De Leon said through a translator. “I feel I hurt him, but he has such great conditioning.”
The 26-year-old De Leon had plenty of confidence coming into the fight. On Friday, he said he was “very sure” he was going to win, although he didn’t say how.
But Peñalosa didn’t go quietly. In the second round, he stunned De Leon with a right cross.
Peñalosa, a former WBC champion, kept the powerful De Leon at bay with counterpunches, flicking lefts and rights into De Leon’s face. As the fight wore on, the crowd began chanting derisively.
Near the end of the 11th round, De Leon cut Peñalosa on the top of his head with an accidental head butt. Peñalosa bled heavily in the final round but never appeared to be in any trouble and was trading punches with De Leon until the final bell.
It was Peñalosa’s first loss since Dec. 20, 2002, when he lost a split decision to Masamori Tokuyama in Japan. (AP)
