World champ ‘suffers’ KO

The other day, I received a voice message from American boxing man Sean Gibbons.

You see, Sean represents a bevy of top Filipino boxers as well as talents from elsewhere.

The message came in two parts.

The first was all about the US elections and the other centered on Filipino world champion Pedro Taduran.

I was hoping to vet a juicy update about Taduran, who was scheduled to make the first defense of his International Boxing Federation (IBF) minimumweight crown against Chinese power-puncher Zhu Dianxing on 23 November in Jeju Island, Korea.

Yes, the message was quite juicy.

But instead of hearing something that was kind of music, what he said sounded like more of breaking news.

“Canceled,” he said.

Since he is Taduran’s go-to guy internationally, Gibbons knows what’s happening in the boxing world regardless who is involved.

Sean swears he does’t know what’s happening but he expressed sadness over the turn of events.

Taduran was tapering off in training when told about the bad news.

He had been training since September under chief trainer Carl Peñalosa Jr. at the Elorde Sports Center and was looking forward to rousing performance on foreign land.

Taduran had won the IBF 105-lb strap in late July in Otsu City by beating up the previously undefeated Ginjiro Shigeoka and was upbeat that he would do the same thing to Zhu.

I told Sean that I was hoping that the fight was being postponed.

But he was very clear.

Canceled.

Not postponed.

That means there is nothing on the horizon so far for Taduran.

The news likewise made me lonely because I am a diehard fan of Taduran and I was excited to see him strut his stuff, qualities that make him a very special — and yet — underrated fighter.

Unless the promoter in Korea, who is based in Vietnam, comes up with something hearty very soon, Taduran will somehow have a blue Christmas.

The only consolation is that he will enter the year with the IBF belt still strapped around his waist.

Who knows what 2025 has in store for Taduran?