His win may not be as big as Manny Pacquiao's but Filipino-American Brian Viloria certainly carried the Philippine flag high and bright yesterday when he retained his World Boxing Council light flyweight title with a 12-round unanimous decision over Mexico's Jose Antonio Aguirre in Las Vegas.

It was Viloria's first defense of the title he won with a first-round knockout of Mexican Eric Ortiz in September. The win extends the winning streak of Filipino boxers over Mexicans and comes after Pacquiao's clinical conquest of Morales last month.

Nicknamed the Hawaiian Punch, Viloria, who grew up in Hawaii but spent part of his childhood in Narvacan, Ilocos, improved to 19-0 with 12 wins inside the distance.

Judges J. Ross ad Ray Hawkins scored the fight in Viloria's favor at 116-112 while Glenn Trowbridge had it also for the Fil-Am at 117-111.

Jorge Arce of Mexico, the interim WBC 112 lbs. champion, has expressed his desire to be Viloria's next opponent if the Fil-Am moves up in weight class.

Aguirre, who held the minimum weight crown from 2000-04, fell to 33-5-1. He has lost three straight fights at 108 pounds.

Viloria came out firing at Aguirre which sent the Mexican staggering in the opening round.

But the Fil-Am, who was obviously lining up for a single blow that will shut the lights off his opponent, struggled in the second and third rounds, where he was often on the wrong end of the Mexican's combinations.

Viloria regained his power in the later rounds, utilizing his counter-punching skills to take the sting out of Aguirre, whose face suffered majority of the punches from Viloria. Aguirre sustained a severe cut in the forehead.

Mexico's Antonio Margarito retained the World Boxing Organization welterweight crown, stopping compariot Manuel Gomez in the first round.

Margarito had predicted he would knock out Gomez in the fifth, but he was ahead of schedule as he stopped his foe with a solid combination at 2:19 of the opening round.

With the win Margarito put himself in line for the winner of the scheduled April 8 bout between Floyd Mayweather and Zab Judah in Las Vegas.*CPT with AFP

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