Hurricane wants rematch with Lisa Brown

MANILA, Philippines - Reigning World Boxing Organization (WBO) women’s super-bantamweight champion Ana Julaton is yearning for a rematch with Lisa “Bad News” Brown in the hope of avenging one of the most heartrending losses in her boxing career.

Julaton, nicknamed “The Hurricane”, disclosed that a return bout with the 40-year-old native of Trinidad and Tobago is certainly under her radar, even to the extent of luring “Bad News” to come over to Manila and have the fight staged here.

“That’s included in my priorities, most definitely,” a smiling Julaton admitted during the victory party tendered for her by TV5 at the Hardrock Cafe in Makati over the weekend following her successful defense of the WBO 122-lbs belt against Franchesca Alcanter.

Accompanied by her mother and manager Angelo Reyes, Julaton arrived in the country Tuesday last week and left for California yesterday.

Brown scored a unanimous decision against the Filipina-American boxer in their 10-round encounter for the World Boxing Association (WBA) super-bantamweight championship in March last year in Ontario, Canada.

Julaton, whose father is from Pozorrubio, Pangasinan and mother is from Masantol, Pampanga, has since recovered from that loss, beating Maria Elena Villalobos to capture the WBO and International Boxing Association (IBA) diadems, and then successfully defending it against Alcanter in a 10-round fight beamed live from Craneway Pavilion, Point Richmond in California by TV5 and AksyonTV 41, the 24-hour news and sports channel of the Kapatid Network.

The 30-year-old boxer, who happens to be a karate expert and teacher as well, stressed that between Brown and Alcanter, the latter is obviously the better puncher.

 “Alcanter (18-10, 9 Kos) is the harder puncher than Lisa (18-4, 5 Kos),” said Julaton (8-2-1), also being handled by celebrated trainer Freddie Roach. “Lisa has somewhat an awkward style of punching.”

Since Brown is still relatively unknown to boxing fans in the country, Julaton said his promoter Allan Tremblay of Orion Sports and Angelo Reyes are giving a timetable of at least a year to build interest on the rematch, before deciding to hold the fight here.

 “Hopefully, by next year,” said Julaton, who loves watching TV, movies and does shopping during her spare time.

At the moment, the WBO and IBO champion is set to defend her title against a mandatory challenger, whom Reyes and Julaton would rather not divulge, but stressed could either be any of the top three contenders in the super-bantamweight division.

If the fight indeed, pushes through in the country, Reyes said they are looking at Manila, Pangasinan or Cebu as the possible site.