By Derek Bonnett: On July 14, Elio Rojas of the Dominican Republic will challenge newly crowned WBC featherweight champion Takahiro Aoh at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan. Rojas, an amateur standout who took a bronze medal at the 2001 World Championship and gold at the 2002 Central American and Caribbean Games before being stripped for testing positive for a diuretic, owns a professional dossier of 20-1 (13) and currently fights out of Brooklyn, New York with trainer Colin Morgan.
Rojas rose through the stages of prospect to contender by beating the standard type opposition, but impressed most in easily defeating former world title challenger Luis Bolano and unbeaten prospect Johnnie Edwards. His first real opportunity came against professional spoiler Gamaliel Diaz in 2007, but, like Robert "The Ghost" Guerrero before him, the Dominican found himself on the wrong side of a split decision and was handed his lone defeat as a professional. Since then, Rojas notched a dominant decision victory over the always formidable, former world title challenger, Hector Velazquez.
The Velazquez bout was in September of 2008 and Rojas’ only fight since losing to Diaz. In that time, Aoh has fought five times including bouts with world ranked Hiroyuki Enoki and Oscar Larios (twice).
"Elio had a huge amateur career of 200 fights and has five years as a professional boxer," Morgan stated. " We have been working together fourteen months now and we mesh well. Unlike Aoh, Elio trains and fights in the USA where he has good sparring and teammates like Guillermo Jones and Peter "Kid Chocolate" Quillin among others."
Morgan feels there might be more to the inactivity of his pupil than meets the eye and doesn’t feel the champion’s home court advantage means much.
"After Elio’s September fight there were talks of him fighting Yuriorkis Gamboa in February, so he returned to training camp and was there on until December 18th," Morgan informed Secondsout. "He took a break, returned in February, and began training for this fight. He loves fighting in enemy territory, so there is no pressure on him."
Reviewing Aoh’s career, one can see he is a difficult fighter to look good against and has a knack of keeping the scores close. Japan isn’t notorious for bad judging by any means, but one has to be concerned about favoritism to the home fighter. Rojas’ only defeat, incidentally, came in Mexico by split decision to the Mexican Diaz.
However, Rojas and his team aren’t planning to just slide by. Aware of what the set-back against Diaz cost him in their 2007 title eliminator (Diaz went on to challenge Jorge Linares for the same WBC title Aoh now owns), Rojas knows winning and winning big is the only recipe for greater success in the sport.
"Aoh is a decent fighter, but nothing special. If Elio wants to fight on HBO or Show time and become a big name fighter [like Gamboa] he has to stay focused and win every round convincingly," Morgan confessed. "If he sticks to the game plan, follows my instructions, and has fun like Guillermo had with [Firat] Arslan, he’ll be fine."
The aforementioned Gamboa, a Cuban defector, recently captured an interim world title by defeating the overmatched Jose Rojas in his last fight. Although exceedingly vulnerable, Gamboa’s recent bouts have put him near the top of the Cuban professionals. A win over Aoh should do similarly for Rojas, whose Dominican contemporaries include Joan Guzman (135) and Delvin Rodriguez (147).
"The Dominican Republic boxing fans will decide if he is the best from his country," Morgan stated. "His world wide fans will judge and decide if Rojas is the best featherweight in the world. I don’t have a ranking system, but Elio is right up there with the great talents I’ve worked with."
If Rojas finds himself WBC featherweight champion come July 15, one would hope that both the Rojas and Gamboa camps can sit down and revisit discussion about a possible showdown. Gone are names like Pacquiao, Barrera, Morales, and Marquez from the 126 pound class, but Rojas and Gamboa just might be the names of the present and future. If the two should clash, the action wouldn’t be anything less than scintillating.
"Gamboa, like Elio, has that huge amateur career. He’s tough and tries to KO everyone," Morgan reasoned. "Gamboa-Rojas would be the perfect fight: the bull and the matador. He would make Elio look real good."
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