By Ronnie Nathanielsz

Marvin “Marvelous” Sonsona, the talented southpaw from General Santos City, has lost a chance to fight for the WBC world featherweight title against champion Gary Russell of the United States following his failure to show up for training.

Sammy Gello-ani, who handles Sonsona together with well-known international promoter and matchmaker Sampson Lewkowicz, told the New Standard/BoxingScene.com that Sonsona had “extended his vacation and if he doesn’t come back to training camp in Cebu under veteran trainer Jhun Agrabio, we are not going to run after him.”

He said Lewkowicz had cancelled the WBC title fight which was scheduled to take place next month because Sonsona hadn’t trained and that “if he had no proper training we don’t want the Philippines to look bad.”

Gello-ani revealed they had waited for Sonsona to return to training camp after his birthday celebration in July in his hometown of General Santos City but he hadn’t shown up until now, underscoring the fact that “we care for him but he doesn’t care for his future. He has to learn how to program his future.”

He said that if Sonsona returns to training camp they plan to schedule a tune-up fight for him.

Gello-ani mentioned that a previous title fight against champion Jhonny Gonzalez was also cancelled because Sonsona hadn’t trained.

He noted that after a fight Sonsona “goes home and after that no more. We are wasting our time.”