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Philippines, 20 Apr 2024 |
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SULAIMAN: PACQUIAO SHOULD FIGHT FOR A BELT PhilBoxing.com Sat, 10 Nov 2007  MANILA -- World Boxing Council president Jose Sulaiman yesterday urged Filipino ring icon Manny Pacquiao to fight for a belt and not let no one, whose only interest is to earn money, surrounds him. Saying the 28-year-old WBC international super-featherweight champion is being manipulated, the 75-year-old Mexican head of the world?s most prestigious boxing body said during the special SCOOP weekly session held at the Manila Hotel, stressed that in the year of his retirement, a boxer?s place in history is judged whether he has won a world championship. Sulaiman did not say though who is or are manipulating Pacquiao, also known in the boxing world as ?Pacman.? ?It is very wrong for a fighter to fight only for money. They should be given the freedom to do what they should do. Winning a championship will be their crowning glory,? Sulaiman, who is in manila to preside over the 45th WBC Convention which starts Sunday at the Manila Hotel, said. ?After 20 or 50 years when he retires, Pacquiao will not be known to have beaten the best pound-for-pound boxers as (Erik) Morales and (Marco Antonio) Barrera, but whether he had won a championship belt,? he told his audience during the session, sponsored by ACCEL. ?He can fight (Juan Manuel) Marquez or any of the Diazes (Julio, the International Boxing Federation lightweight champion or Juan, the World Boxing Association lightweight titleholder) or I don?t care who, but the most important thing is he must wear a belt to earn his place in history, ?Sulaiman, who came to ther session accompanied by Games and Amusement Board chair Eric Buhain, said. Sulaiman, who said he has been in the country for the fourth time since coming here first in 1975 in connection with the Mumammad Ali-Joe Frazier world heavyweight championship fight called ?Thrilla in Manila?, said he thought that the WBC does not provide penalty to any boxer who refuses to fight for a belt. ?No, we don?t have any penalty. The only thing that would tantamount to any penalty is such fighter loses a chance to etch this name in boxing history,? he said. Sulaiman was all praises though for Pacquio, who, he said, is the country?s present boxing hero in the likes of flyweight Pancho Villa, the first Filipino and Asian to win a world championship, Gabriel ?Flash? Elorde, who lorded the junior-lightweight division for seven years, and Luisito Espinosa, once the world bantamweight and featherweight titlist. Pacquiao had, at one time or another, wore the WBC flyweight crown before climbing to higher weight categories.  |
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