After another hard grind at the gym on Saturday, reigning International Boxing Federation (IBF) minimumweight champion Pedro Taduran turned on the TV to watch a potential foe fight live.
While Taduran has no scheduled date yet with Puerto Rican two-belt titleholder Oscar Collazo, the Filipino took the time to see him defend the twin titles against handpicked challenger Jesus Haro in Anaheim, Californian.
Collazo went on to retain the World Boxing Organization (WBO) and World Boxing Association (WBA) straps when Haro’s corner pulled the plug on the overmatched fighter’s bid in the seventh round.
Taduran was impressed by Collazo’s performance, stressing that the unbeaten WBO-WBA ruler proved why he is the 105-pound division’s top dog.
“He put on a great performance…he became a pressure fighter,” Taduran said from his Las Vegas training camp.
Collazo has yet to issue an announcement about his next fight but it was mentioned during the post-fight chat that his camp would attempt to revive talks to face Melvin Jerusalem, the World Boxing Council champion, sometime late in the summer.
But for that to happen, Jerusalem has to survive a tough defense on hostile ground in mid-May when he travels to Johannesburg for a rematch with South African Siyakholwa Kuse.
Same is true with Taduran, who is slated to make the third defense of the IBF jewels on 3 April against Gustavo Perez of Mexico at the Pechanga Resort Casino in Temecula, California.
Although Taduran became preoccupied with Collazo for one night, he remained focused on his showdown with Perez.
In fact, he and chief trainer Carl Penalosa are neck-deep in preparations at the Knucklehead Boxing Gym owned by Sean Gibbons, who has dispatched top Cuban Joahnys Argilagos as lead sparring partner.
“We are right on track,” Penalosa said, adding Taduran’s weight is 114 pounds and that they have started to cut back on the number of sparring rounds.
“One fight at a time,” Taduran added.