Celestino Caballero close to announcing new opponent
The boxing world may have struck gold with a recent signing of a fight for WBA featherweight interim champion Celestino ‘Pelenchin’ Caballero. The Panamanian fighter returned home to take care of personal
matters recently, but is expected to return to Las Vegas in early October to resume training sessions with trainer Jeff Mayweather.
Caballero’s co-trainer, Rogelio Espino, said that a deal for a prospective opponent is in the works and close to being finalized, but that small technicalities missing at the moment mean he doesn’t wish
to disclose the opponent’s name.
Espino expects that Caballero will return to the ring on HBO on 27 November in Las Vegas to defend his title. He will likely fight at the featherweight level (126lb).
Espino likewise added with a smirk that he “would like to kill all of the speculation, but it is important to identify, secure and finalize a deal with the fighter.”
“There have been many reports and none of them were finalized. We hope that this time it will be itself.”
At this time, there are two rumoured options for Caballero. The first is that he move up in weight to junior lightweight (130 pounds) to challenge Jason Litzau. The second is that he remain at featherweight
to fight Jonathan Victor Barros for the now vacant WBA regular title. The title was vacated recently when Yuriorkis Gamboa unified the titles last Saturday by defeating IBF champion Orlando Salido.
Caballero is well known to be, along with a few others, the “most avoided fighter” in boxing.
Because he is self-promoted and has shown devastating talent in his weight class, champions and bigger promotional stables have been known to avoid him and pretend he isn’t relevant. But the fact is Caballero
hasn’t lost a boxing match since 2004. He’s beaten prospects like Steve Molitor (Ring Magazine ranked number three) and Ricardo Cordoba (who is in works to fight Guillermo Rigondeaux on the Pacquiao-Margarito card), but has never had the opportunity to fight
guys likes Juan Manuel Lopez or Yuriorkis Gamboa.
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