Next to Manny Pacquiao, two-division champion Gerry Peñalosa is the most successful Filipino fighter who is enjoying the fruits of his labor.
Though a distant second in terms of resources and popularity, Peñalosa, now 53, seems pretty content with what he has.
Retired from boxing the last 14 years, Peñalosa wears two hats.
He attends to his fast-growing boxing and fitness gyms spread across the metro and in nearby provinces.
To ensure that he doesn’t end up going flat broke, Peñalosa also maintains a trading company.
With an ever-supportive wife Goody by his side, Peñalosa, who logged a sterling record of 55-8-2 win-loss-draw record with 37 knockouts in a career that spanned 21 years, also acts as a boxing promoter and manager.
While he doesn’t have a big stable, Peñalosa signs up blue chip talents, including former amateur standout Chriztian Pitt Laurente and Kenneth Llover.
Peñalosa is ticked pink by the signing of Llover, who he feels could win a world title someday.
“I like him and I believe he can become successful,” Peñalosa said in a chat with DAILY TRIBUNE over the weekend.
Even if his schedule is packed, Peñalosa makes sure he keeps Llover updated.
“My next plan is for him to fight for the Orient-Pacific crown and if he keeps on winning, he could fight for the world title.”
Llover has a lot of promise.
The unbeaten 21-year-old from General Trias, Cavite, has a 12-0-0 ledger with seven knockouts.
Aside from his involvement in boxing, Peñalosa also finds time to work out.
Now weighing way past his fighting weight, Peñalosa sometimes shows up at one of his gyms to train.
“But most of the time, I just use the treadmill. Sometimes I shadowbox and punch the mitts with resident trainers. But given my schedule, it is not often.”
Born in August 1971 in San Carlos City, Negros Occidental, Peñalosa comes from a family of fighters.
His father Carl Sr. was a former Philippine champion in the 1960s and a frequent campaigner in Japanese rings and he fought some of the very best during his era, facing off with Pedro Adigue, Rene Barrientos, Roberto Cruz, Arthur Persley and Paul Fujii.
He is also the younger brother of another two-division titleholder Dodie Boy Peñalosa and Jonathan Peñalosa, a one-time world flyweight title challenger, who is an active trainer and part of the solid training team of Pacquiao.
Another brother, Carl Jr. — nicknamed Erbing — is the lead trainer of reigning International Boxing Federation minimumweight titlist Pedro Taduran.
His nephews, Dodie Boy Jr. and Dave, also fought in the pros.
As his businesses start to expand, Peñalosa is not putting family affairs on the back seat.
In fact, he is flying to Canada this week to accompany his daughter Gayle and help her set up in Vancouver.
“She will be studying Psychology at the University of British Columbia,” he said.
“I just support her. She was already in Yale but decided to go to Canada. I just support her all the way.”
His son Julio Cesar, named after the legendary Mexican boxer Julio Cesar Chavez, is with him in the country and busy with work in the family business.
“I am working hard to make sure they get the very best in education because that’s something that I didn’t have when I was growing up,” said Peñalosa, who won the World Boxing Council super-flyweight diadem in February 1997 in Tokyo.
His second world title — the World Boxing Organization (WBO) bantamweight jewels — was won when he stopped Johnny Gonzalez with a body shot in 1997 in Sacramento, California.
An attempt to win a third one — the WBO super-bantam strap of Juan Manuel Lopez of Puerto Rico ended with Freddie Roach advising the referee that Peñalosa will no longer answer the bell for the 10th round.
Even with the defeat, Peñalosa would go on to fight two more times until finally realizing that he could no longer pull the trigger.
By the time he decided to call it quits, Peñalosa’s faculties remained intact, enabling him to join his wife Goody and kids on trips locally and internationally.
While he may have been one or two fights late from retiring, it was still a good call.
Nowadays, Peñalosa roams around the metro always wearing a toothy smile, proof that he made the right call to pull the plug.
Even with abundant resources, how can one enjoy life’s blessings when your brain is all mashed up?
Not Gerry.
He is truly one of a kind.