Taken for a ride

Here’s a true story about boxing’s bad side.

A world title fight is on tap for 22 September here in Metro Manila starring reigning World Boxing Council (WBC) minimumweight king Melvin Jerusalem defending against Mexican challenger Luis Castillo.

As per the agreement between the Mexican fighter’s camp and the Filipino promoters, Castillo and his handlers are set to arrive in the Philippines on 15 September, one full week before the title fight, giving him some time to adjust to the local conditions like the weather and jet lag.

That has been the case whenever a Mexican boxer set to fight for a world title on Philippine soil as Filipino promoters roll out the red carpet for foreigners as a showcase of true Filipino hospitality.

But that’s not the case whenever a Filipino fighter is bound for Mexico to challenge for a world crown.

You see, early this month, Dave Apolinario traveled to Mexico City and fought for the vacant International Boxing Federation flyweight plum.

Originally planning to set up camp in Mexico a month before so he could get used to the city’s dizzying 7,400-foot elevation, Apolinario arrived there five days before the match.

The result?

His rival, Angel Ayala, stopped him in six rounds.

Apparently, Apolinario only received his Mexican visa a week before the scheduled bout and he had to fly to Tokyo so he could catch a direct flight to Mexico City.

Another option for him is to fly to Los Angeles from Manila then take a short flight to Mexico City but Apolinario doesn’t have a United States visa.

Anyway, this is one of boxing’s dirty tricks to gain advantage.

That was a hell of a ride.

Years ago, while covering the world title defense of Gerry Peñalosa in Korea, we got driven around for about four hours before reaching the venue of the fight.

Billeted in Seoul, we took a van and headed for Sungnam (now Seongnam).

Since the Internet was not yet available and language was a problem, we didn’t know how long it would take to reach Sungman from the Korean capital.

We were just told that it’s not a long drive.

Not a long drive meant a journey of about 30-45 minutes.

By the time we got there, the fight was just a few hours away as our Korean driver kept stopping and asking around for directions during the entire journey.

Despite being confused by all the travel mess, we all still managed to crack jokes from time to time with Dodie Boy Peñalosa, the fighter’s brother, providing most of the content.

At one time, Dodie Boy asked the driver about our location.

“Hey, Mister Driver, are we already in North Korea?”

Fortunately, Peñalosa picked himself up from a first-round knockdown and knocked out Young Jo Cho later in the fight.

Now, here’s the most interesting part.

The drive back to Seoul from Seongnam didn’t take four hours. Not even a couple of hours.

The trip was about 30 minutes since Seoul was a mere 20 kilometers away.

As we hopped out of our vehicle, we all looked at each other and laughed.

That was a hell of a ride.