Round One: Dr. Bernard Remollino Brings Pancho Villa Back Into the Ring

By Emmanuel Rivera, RRT
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 01 Aug 2025

On August 23, 2025, San Francisco will welcome home a story long overdue for telling. At the Sentro Filipino Cultural Center, Dr. Bernard James Remollino, PhD, will launch his book Pancho Villa: World Champion 1923, a work shaped by memory and meaning that restores the voice of Francisco “Pancho Villa” Guilledo to the historical stage he helped shape.

Boxing, as a sport and a Filipino tradition, has always held a strong gravitational pull. It came through conquest but became something more— a stage for survival, pride, and resistance. More than a hundred years later, the squared circle still reverberates with stories of those who fought for more than victory. The sport didn’t arrive gently. It came with rifles and orders. But like many things forced upon us, Filipinos reshaped it into something of their own. Boxing became a space for grit and movement. It offered a rare path to rise. In the center of that story stands Francisco Guilledo— small in size, towering in legacy.

That’s why this book matters. Dr. Remollino’s earlier work, SCRAPPING INTO A KNOT: PINOY BOXERS, TRANSPACIFIC FANS, AND THE TROUBLING OF INTERWAR CALIFORNIA’S RACIAL REGIMES (Alon: Journal for Filipinx American and Diasporic Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2 (July 2021), pp. 149-180 (32 pages),(https://www.jstor.org/stable/48644331), earned a quiet spot in the growing shelf of Filipino boxing memory. But this new book does more than document— it listens and restores.

Villa’s rise was never just a tale of sport. His journey took place in a world that rarely made space for men like him. The fact that he made space anyway is what makes the story unforgettable.

Dr. Remollino doesn’t write to glorify. He writes to remember. And to help us remember, too. These are his words, shared in full:

“This is not a boxing book. This is a history of resistance to U.S. empire made possible through the pugilistic performances of a Filipino fighter whose movements, labor, and cultural capital were intertwined with transpacific racial regimes in the early twentieth century.”

“This book offers a story of how culture generates the conditions of opportunity that both reinforce and trouble hegemony. When Francisco ‘Pancho Villa’ Guilledo won the World Flyweight Championship in 1923, he burst open the possibilities for Filipina/x/os in the Philippines and in the diaspora to challenge the gendered and racialized expectations on their bodies, cultures, and histories.”

“In choosing the feelings of his fans over the economic logics of the boxing industry, Villa’s gameness destabilized the industry’s plans to promote him as a profitable main eventer. His memories of poverty in the Philippines and his professed love for his fans motivated him and his spiritual successors to literally put their lives on the line.”

“Guilledo and his cohort of Filipino pugilists demonstrated what was possible in Filipina/os’ fights for independence, survival, and dignity… Boxers and boxing allow for narratives of alterity to be constructed for aggrieved, colonized subjects. As prizefighters often do, Guilledo fought to earn money to improve his material conditions. In the process, his performances in and out of the ring modeled possibilities for resistance in his time.”

“Francisco ‘Pancho Villa’ Guilledo was a great hope, a long wished-for-dream for his people. His tenacity showcased the fighting spirit of a Philippines struggling to be free. His rich, deeply impactful, and undeniable legacy lives on in the hearts of Filipina/o struggle.”

The launch, titled Round One, will feature a public conversation between Dr. Remollino and Carolyn Sideco, founder of CoachingKapwa. They will reflect on Villa’s life, the colonial systems around him, and what it means to carry this story forward.

There will also be live music from Power Struggle, a boxing demonstration by Bayanihan Boxing Club, and a short film preview by Kapwa Kollective. Archival visuals and artwork will be presented by Bayani Art. Cultural booths and refreshments will be part of the gathering, as well as a featured portrait of Villa by Filipino American artist Jess C. X. Guhit, whose painting captures both the strength and stillness of a man who became much more than a fighter.

This is more than a launch. It’s a space to gather, to honor, and to remember a champion who fought for something larger than himself— and the scholar who brought his story into full view.
Pancho Villa didn’t just win fights. He gave people something to hold on to. Thanks to Dr. Remollino, that legacy rises once more.

• Saturday, August 23, 2025
• Sentro Filipino Cultural Center
• 814 Mission Street, San Francisco
• 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM
• RSVP: https://PVBookLaunchSF2025.eventbrite.com

Acknowledgment

With gratitude to Dr. Bernard James Remollino for allowing us to share selected words and images from Pancho Villa: World Champion 1923. His work speaks for itself and for so many of us.

Click here to view a list of other articles written by Emmanuel Rivera, RRT.