Papua New Guinea will take its boxing talent on the road this April, with four highly promising athletes travelling to Ho Chi Minh City for an international professional boxing event.
Leading the group is Junior Kauko Raka (seated), widely regarded as Papua New Guinea’s most recognised professional boxer.
Raka says the team is pumped about the opportunity, and confident they can deliver killer performances.
“We know that Vietnamese fighters compete with great spirit,” Raka said.
“I’ve been there before — they got skills and they’re tough brother.
“But I have warning for them.
“My team has been working extra hard, and we’re coming to give everything we’ve got.
We want to show that Papua New Guinea can mix it with the big boys. We're on the world stage now.
“We are real dogs brother. All bite - no quit.
“So please tell Vietnam they better be ready — we ain’t playing.
“We going to shock a lot of people this April.
TRIGGER PROMOTION 7 will be held in Thao Dien HCMC on Sunday April 19th.
The event will be televised and live streamed with an expected international audience of more than 2 million people.
* pictured: boxers Tau Bowen, Magdalyn Menjawi, Fidelis Laia, Junior Raka (seated), with trainer Nelson John (far right)
Despite suffering narrow losses, Ben Ligas and Jules Victoriano produced next level performances in the belt fights in Vietnam last night.
Ligas faced the vastly experienced Uzbek, the much revered "mini Tyson " Olimjon Nazarov. This was quality boxing from both, with "the Sniper" bringing the cleaner punches, but perhaps lacking the aggression of Nazarov, who looked constantly keen for work. This was a hard match to score, as neither fighter was particularly dominant in a see sawing affair, and the body shot in the 11th where Ligas took a knee was perhaps the only real difference.
Dinh Hong Quan is physically indomitable, and with his height and reach, this improving Vietnam boxer is a task for anybody. It was anticipated that Jules Victoriano would give him his toughest test to date, and he definitely didn't disappoint !
This was a great fight, and is probably best viewed in two parts. Victoriano boxed beautifully in the early rounds, but despite landing nice shots, the Vietnam champ kept stealing rounds with some heavier and more direct landed shots. Quan also "appeared" more dominant, more frequently backing Victoriano up and putting him on to combos.
Going into the second half of the fight, Victoriano definitely lifted his output and accuracy, and even gave the Vietnam opponent a couple of "dig deep" moments !
This was an exciting and fantastic match up, that very easily could have been scored a draw, it was that evenly contested! There is no doubt that Dinh Hong Quan produced the best performance of his career last night, and this was really needed because of the beautiful boxing skills displayed by Jules Victoriano.
VSP would love to see these two great young fighters rematch at a later date, maybe on a bigger stage!
Post event, all smiles, and pictured are Coach Toto Laurente, Ben Ligas, VSP Vietnam boss Lim Song, and Jules Victoriano. Great job by all !
