When Weljon Mindoro was a three-year-old and led to a river in his native Philippines for a bath with other kids, it wasn\u2019t long before some rough-housing started among the boys.<\/p>\n
Next thing Weljon knew, he was throwing hands.<\/p>\n
This innate rush to fight would strike again as a nine-year-old when Mindoro watched his older brother fare poorly in an amateur fight, boasting, \u201cI should be the one fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seconds after achieving victory, someone delivered young Weljon 50 pesos and he was hooked.<\/p>\n
The boy is grown now, a full-fledged middleweight carrying a 16-0-1 (16 KOs) record to his Friday night ProBoxTV co-main event at College Park Center in Arlington, Texas.<\/p>\n
Mindoro, 26, is tasked with meeting veteran Elias Espadas, 35, of Mexico. Espadas, 23-8-1 (16 KOs), has only been knocked out by two fighters, including unified 154lbs champion Xander Zayas.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a good, veteran boxer who\u2019s tough and can take a punch,\u201d Mindoro said.<\/p>\n
ProBoxTV founder Garry Jonas signed Mindoro a long-term contract in January, assessing \u201chis power is real \u2013 his fights don\u2019t last long and he\u2019s real heavy handed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’ve seen from his highlight-reel knockouts that he’s just very aggressive, right? He comes to fight. He presses forward. He doesn’t mess around, and he wants to put hands on people. So we’re gonna watch closely to see where his ceiling is. We’re not sure. This fight with Espadas is a bit like a ceiling check.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mindoro says he doesn\u2019t carry single-minded knockout plans to his bouts, but he knows when he\u2019s landed a defining crack.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like feeling a real solid punch, knowing my opponent is getting knocked down,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He\u2019s seen the ultimate career blueprint from his countryman Manny Pacquiao: knockouts beget attention, attention begets a title, a title begets financial riches.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just try to keep my focus on the fight. If I get a knockout win and that gets me famous, I have God to thank for it,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m happy the people are liking what I\u2019m doing now. I know a lot of Filipinos will be watching. I want to make them happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jonas is bullish on how Mindoro will fare Friday, and said his building fan base\u2019s interest is spiraling because of his larger weight.<\/p>\n
\u201cI expect him to be a very popular fighter. So, the sky\u2019s the limit for this kid,\u201d Jonas said.<\/p>\n
Jonas expects to bring back Mindoro on his late-August card headlined by WBC interim super-middleweight champion Lester Martinez.<\/p>\n
As usual \u2013 whether it\u2019s the river, at ringside or as the hot lights glow above him \u2013 Mindoro will be poised to scrap.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always remember what the school that took me in said about me: I\u2019m athletic and have courage and potential,\u201d Mindoro said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Weljon Mindoro was a three-year-old and led to a river in his native Philippines for a bath…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,6102,10078,210760,101,56,54,55,210759],"class_list":["post-620650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-boxingscene","tag-proboxtv","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-weljon-mindoro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}