‘Boom’ hopes familiarity can give him win

Roman “Sonic Boom” Alvarez is counting on his familiarity on the fighting style of Mark Abelardo when they collide in Pacific Xtreme Combat 50 on Dec. 4 at the University of Guam Calvo Fieldhouse in Mangilao.

Roman Alvarez will try to see what will be the result of his four-month long training when he faces Mark Abelardo of New Zealand in the Pacific Xtreme Combat 50 on Dec. 4 at the University of Guam Calvo Fieldhouse. (Jon Perez)

Alvarez, who is undefeated after seven fights with three knockouts, said he and Abelardo of Team Quest Thailand (11-4 with 6KOs) are good friends and even hung out a couple of times when they both foght in PXC events in Manila, Philippines.

However, their friendship will be set aside in their scheduled three, five-minute rounds in one of the six undercard bouts of the Frank “The Crank” Camacho-Tyrone “Bones” Jones main event for the PXC lightweight belt.

Josh “Chaos” Duenas (4-5) and Shane “Pikaboo” Alvarez (10-2), Alvarez’s stablemates at Trench Tech Gym, are also on the fight card facing Kaiwhare Kara-France (10-5) and Japanese pro Kentaro Watanabe (10-7), respectively.

“But come fight day in December, we’re just going to set aside our friendship and will get down to business. I have always been ready,” added Alvarez, who had a four-month training camp to prepare for his second fight in 2015.

Alvarez, the reigning Trench Warz 145-lb champion, said he saw Abelardo fought against Filipino bets Harold Banario and Ernie Braca in separate PXC events in the Philippines.

“I’ve been watching him and I was sitting at ringside when he defeated Banario last June 13,” said Alvarez, who also won his bout against Braca after the latter was disqualified after kicking a grounded fighter on the head, in the same fight card.

Abelardo’s wins over Banario and Braca were both by KO through punches. His first win was in the 4:30 mark of the first round and his next was only in 1:30 after the opening bell.

Alvarez will be climbing the PXC Terrordome on a seven-fight win streak and is fresh from that victory over Braca, while the Filipino-Kiwi Abelardo, who was born in New Zealand to Filipino parents, suffered a unanimous decision loss against Trevin Jones in PXC 49 last Aug. 7 that ended his own seven-bout winning run.

“I know he is a bit of both a ground and stand-up fighter. He can also punch since he has a number of wins by knockout. But I’ve studied him and know how he fights. I’ll just give it my all and will have a different technique against him,” added Alvarez, who did not go into more details on his fight plan against Abelardo.