From Journeyman to World Champion REY “HAMMER” LORETO FINALLY FINDS A HOME

By Manny Pinol

It will be a homecoming of sort when IBO World Junior Flyweight champion Rey “The Hammer” Loreto takes on a veteran Indonesian fighter in the Almendras Gymnasium in Davao City on Oct. 11.

It was in the Almendras Gymnasium, now known as the Davao City Recreation Center, where Loreto, born and raised in Tamayong, Davao City, made his first professional fight at age 17 losing in a 4-round decision to Ryan Makiputin in June of 2008.

After suffering three more successive losses, twice to my former boxer Rey Mercado, Loreto decided to cross the seas and went up to La Trinidad, Benguet where he linked up with boxing promoter Brico Santig.

That was when his boxing career turned for the better scoring a knockout in his first appearance in La Trinidad.

But Loreto suffered many more losses afterwards, nine in all and with 13 losses in his boxing resume, the Tamayong, Davao City native was an attractive target for foreign fights where the promoters are looking for easy prey.

On Aug. 23, 2013, Loreto was asked to fight tough Thai fighter Pornsawan Porpranook for the Pan-Asia Boxing Association (PABA) junior flyweight championship.

Dominating the fight before it was ended following a clash of heads in the 10th round, Loreto won his first international boxing title by majority decision.

In February of this year, South African promoter Rodney Berman pitted Loreto against two-time world champion Nkosinathi Joyi for the vacant IBO Jr. Flyweight title in the undercard of the Gennady Golovkin world championship in Monaco.

Expected to be an easy prey for the world class Joyi, Loreto surprised the South African two-time champion with punishing punches to the head and body.

He knocked out Joyi in the 3rd round to win the world title.

In spite of the fact that he has won a world title, no Filipino promoter has shown interest in Loreto, perhaps because journeymen who become world champions are often flashes in the pan.

When word reached Sonshine Sports Management, a new sports management group backed by religious leader Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, that Loreto was in search for a promoter, a promotional agreement was immediately forged.

In a strange twist of fate, it was only after Loreto was signed up as a Sonshine Sports fighter when it was known that he was born and raised in Tamayong, Davao City.

Tamayong, Davao City is not only Loreto’s home. It is also the home of his new patron, Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, who has developed the mountain village into a religious retreat area where he transformed a previously deforested area into a beautiful garden of trees and flowers now called “The Prayer Mountain.”

Rey Loreto, the journeyman who became a world champion, has not only found his way back home but has also found a patron who believes in him and has vowed to support him.