World super-flyweight champions, International Boxing Federation kingpin Jerwin Ancajas and World Boxing Organization ruler Donnie Nietes are headed different directions.
Attending Tuesday night’s Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA) Awards Night at the Manila Hotel, Ancajas and Nietes greeted each other as though they were long-lost buddies reliving the good old days.
As per requests from those in attendance, Ancajas and Nietes gladly posed for photos, their fists clenched.
But Ancajas’ face showed a more delighted mood; Nietes’s was more subdued.
Ancajas’s next fight is already set for May 4 – a mandatory defense against Japanese Ryuichi Funai – in Stockton, California.
Nietes, meanwhile, remains shrouded in mystery as his promotional team ALA Boxing, is scheduled to participate in a purse with mandatory challenger Aston Palicte’s outfit owned by Roy Jones Jr.
A third party, Peter Rivera, a leading Puerto Rican promoter, is also taking part in the WBO-ordered event set Thursday.
Sean Gibbons, who represents Ancajas, is finalizing the travel arrangements of the Filipino southpaw, who will be making the seventh
defense of the IBF 115-lb crown he won in 2016.
Joven Jimenez, the fighter’s manager and trainer, wants to relocate to Las Vegas a month before the fight.
