Don’t look now but unbeaten Filipino bantamweight Kenneth Llover could be headlining a major card in March 2026 in Manila.
Fresh from crushing Chinese challenger Ayati Sailike in just two rounds in Aichi, Japan, Llover and his handlers are targeting a rousing return against a topnotch opponent.
“It could be a world title fight,” said somebody with knowledge of the negotiations. “But if it is not, it will be a big fight against a big-named opponent.”
Sailike to raise his immaculate slate to 17-0 with 12 knockouts.
Llover swears he was ready to bang bodies all night with Sailike but the challenger suddenly felt the creeps and became gun-shy.
“(I told him) punch,” Llover said after hardly working out a sweat in defending his Orient- Pacific Boxing Federation (OPBF) 118-pound crown at the Aichi Sky Expo in Tokoname, a city just outside Nagoya.
“He didn’t want to (punch). He got scared probably because he felt my power right away,” said Llover, who hails from General Trias, Cavite.
The easy outing was Llover’s fourth fight this year, having won the OPBF title last March in Tokyo with a first-round demolition of Keita Kurihara.
Then in August in Manila, Llover stopped former Panamanian world champion Luis Concepcion in the eighth round.
A little over two months later, Llover was back in action and the venue of his awesome display of power was Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan.
The poor fellow who was on the receiving end of Llover’s fists of fury was Luciano Baldor of Argentina, who went down in four rounds.
In the event Llover gets a world title shot, it will be for the International Boxing Federation edition being held by the newly-crowned Jose Salas of Mexico.
Salas halted Landile Ngxeke of South Africa a few weeks ago in Mexico City to win the title vacated by Junto Nakatani.
Like Llover, Salas is a southpaw and also has 17 wins without a loss with 11 knockouts and own of his victims is Filipino Aston Palicte, who fell in four rounds in Las Vegas in 2023.
Llover is managed by two-division world champion Gerry Peñalosa, trained by Dindo Campo and Alex Ariza (strength and conditioning) and promoted by Kameda Promotions of Japan.