DESPITE failing to make weight in his first title defense in the undercard of the Manny Pacquiao vs. Adrien Broner bout, undefeated Jhack Tepora won’t be climbing to the 130-pound division but will stay at 126 pounds.
Tepora, who is undefeated in 22 fights with 17 knockouts, showed up 5.5 pounds over the limit during the weigh-in, leading to the cancelation of his title defense.
However, his brother and trainer Jingjing said there were a lot of reasons for the boxer’s failure to make weight, among them the lack of ample time to prepare for the fight.
He said they learned of the fight only during Pacquiao’s birthday celebration last Dec. 17.
“He can still make 126 pounds but we really had a hard time because of the short notice. We only learned of this fight during Manny’s birthday. We only had one month and two days to train,” said Jingjing.
That was the complete opposite of his earlier statements a week before the fight, when Jhack was 11 pounds over the limit. Then, he expressed confidence his brother would make weight and told SunStar Cebu that the champion wasn’t drained and was even eating.
Jingjing also said that even before learning of the fight, Jhack was doing light training with the assumption that his title defense would be on Feb. 9.
“When we learned that Jhack would fight in the undercard, we really tried to complete his sparring rounds but we had a hard time to make the weight because he was getting weak,” said Jingjing.
The trainer said Jhack will take a rest for now but will fight again in April.
“He will just rest. MP Promotions has also assured us that they will let him fight in April. We will really prepare for that,” he said.
Jingjing added that Jhack had a terrible experience in Las Vegas as nobody took care of him and he also didn’t get even a portion of his purse.
“They just left him alone. Nobody took care of him. It’s a good thing that coach Nonoy Neri helped him,” he said. (ESL of SuperBalita Cebu)