Saipan\u2019s Kelvin \u201cThe Big Hit\u201d Fitial will take on Spike 22\u2019s Roque Martinez in the main event of Pacific Xtreme Combat 24 set for this Saturday, June 11, at the Resorts World Manila\u2019s Newport Performing Arts Theater in Pasay City, Philippines.<\/p>\n
Fitial left on a flight for Guam yesterday to join a convoy of Guam fighters who will also be featured in a nine-bout fight card. It will be the first time PXC will be held in the Southeast Asian country.<\/p>\n
The Marianas Elite fighter won four matches in a row before the controversial draw against Martinez in their first meeting in PXC 22: Battle For The Belt in late January of this year.<\/p>\n
Fitial comes into the rematch with an 11-6-2 win-loss-draw card with one no-contest, while Martinez (5-3-1) dropped two fights before the no-decision against the Saipan fighter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been waiting for a long time for this and am ready for the challenge. Of course I want to thank Ed (Arriola) and Lionel (Borja) for being by my side and I want to also thank my sponsor Paul Blas and Rush Gear as well as my family, friends, and everyone on Saipan for their support. I want everyone to know that I am going over there to finish what I started,\u201d said Fitial in a telephone interview yesterday. <\/p>\n
\u201cKelvin has been training hard, working on his cardio for the past four months. He has been practicing on the mat and hitting the bags with corner man Lionel Borja three times a week,\u201d said Fitial\u2019s manager Ed Arriola in a phone interview yesterday. <\/p>\n
According to Arriola, Fitial has also been routinely undergoing aqua-training sessions as well as running up to five miles a day, while playing basketball in two leagues.<\/p>\n
Arriola and Borja will be joining the locally acclaimed \u201cPeople\u2019s Champ\u201d on his trip to the Philippines.<\/p>\n
As for Martinez, he said his training is going great and feels well prepared for the fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis time I just want to go into this and have fun and fight smart. I think I fought with too much emotion last time. I\u2019ve really picked up my strength training for this fight and I feel a lot more explosive,\u201d stated Martinez yesterday in an Internet chat session.<\/p>\n
Both fighters also wished each other good luck.<\/p>\n
This will be Martinez\u2019s first fight in the Philippines, however he has fought off-island twice in Japan and five times in the U.S. <\/p>\n
Fitial fought once before in the Philippines and has also competed off-island in Hong Kong and Korea.<\/p>\n
Other fighters making the trip include Martinez\u2019s teammates \u201cBaby\u201d Joe Taimanglo (10-4-1) and Ricky Camp (1-0).<\/p>\n
Taimanglo is on a four-match winning streak since September 2009 and will welcome Korea\u2019s Young Jun Kim to the cage in his mixed martial arts debut, while Camp will be setting his sights for win No. 2 against the Philippines\u2019 Carlos Tiongson (3-1).<\/p>\n
In addition, Ground Fu\u2019s Tony Reyes (5-1), Counter Shot MMA\u2019s Josh \u201cThe Hedgehog\u201d Alvarez (6-3), and Guahan Top Team\u2019s Alex Castro (6-8) will also be part of the action.<\/p>\n
Reyes only fought twice since December 2009, but won them both and will challenge USA\u2019s Roland Perez (6-4-1) of Alliance MMA, while Alvarez will try to bounce back from a pair of losses since last July and will take on the Philippines\u2019 Rogelito Plomeda (2-1). <\/p>\n
Like Reyes, Castro has also notched two wins in as many fights since December 2009. He will be pitted against USA\u2019s Harris \u201cThe Hit-man\u201d Sarmiento (31-22) of Hawaii\u2019s 808 Fight Factory. The 28-year-old Hawaiian had a flawless 2010, but lost his last two fights since January of this year.<\/p>\n
Fighters from the U.S., the Philippines, Brazil, South Korea, Guam, Hawaii, and Saipan are all scheduled to compete in PXC 24.<\/p>\n
After the rematch, Fitial plans to return home immediately in time to help coach and support his fellow Marianas Elite fighters in Trench Tech Purebred Promotions\u2019 Trench Warz 14: Ground Zero on June 17.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saipan\u2019s Kelvin \u201cThe Big Hit\u201d Fitial will take on Spike 22\u2019s Roque Martinez in the main event of Pacific Xtreme Combat 24 set for this Saturday, June 11, at the Resorts World Manila\u2019s Newport Performing Arts Theater in Pasay City, Philippines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152523\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}