A whole slew of conspiracy theories followed Humberto Soto’s royal thumping of Bobby Pacquiao in last Sunday’s superfeatherweight matchup. Soto was a prohibitive favorite, what with his having won 19 straight fights since 2002, 13 of them by way of knockout. Prior to that, he lost to Kevin Kelley, but not before having strung up nine straight victories, seven of which did not go the distance.
Moreover, Soto has been vastly underrated, and incomprehensively ignored by boxing’s world bodies, which have not gone out of their way to set the stage for a big-money fight or even a title fight in a very long time.
Into the ring stepped Bobby Pacquiao, whose last fight was rather embarrassing, since he lost his WBC Americas title by disqualification for exceeding the weight limit. It would take a lot of doing for him to beat Soto. He only had two things going his way on paper. First, he beat Kevin Kelley, the last man to beat Soto. But Pacquiao overcame Kelley years after the latter defeated Soto, and was therefore not the same fighter. Secondly, Pacquiao could have been banking on the bland Soto’s desperation to make a dramatic statement. Unfortunately, Soto did not make any mistakes.
Now, it appears that the Pinoy’s big brother, WBC international superfeatherweight champion Manny Pacquiao, is hastily being motivated into stepping into the ring against Soto, telenovela style. Kid brother gets into trouble, kuya flies in to save the day.
But the big question remains: why not fight WBC champ Juan Manuel Marquez, with whom Pacman has a score to settle? Or why not face down Marco Antonio Barrera again for the big bucks?
The rumor is that Bob Arum is orchestrating matters to pull on Pacquiao’s heart strings to loosen his own purse strings. The legal issue between Arum’s Top Rank and Oscar dela Hoya’s Golden Boy has not been settled. Thus, it will be next to impossible to push through, since neither camp wants the other to make money off their properties.
The second rumor is that Soto will become dispensable once the two sides have sat down and forged a compromise before the court decides matters for them. Arum and dela Hoya are supposedly meeting in secret to break the stalemate and make each other some money. That way, everybody’s happy.
The third rumor is that Barrera wants out of Golden Boy, with whom he has a contract. Supposedly, the former world champion felt cheated because of the small purse he received in losing his title to Marquez. Now, he has nothing, and has backed out of the rematch because he really prefers a megabuck deal to fight Pacquiao.
How does Barrera plan to get out of his contract with Golden Boy? Retiring seems a plausible plan, since Golden Boy cannot promote a retired fighter. All Barrera has to do then is sit out a few months, let his contract run out, then return to the scene as a free agent. He can even train while “retired”.
Very interesting scenarios. Would the Pacquiao-Soto fight be a good one? Yes. Can Soto beat Pacquiao? I don’t think so. But the problem is that Pacquiao stands to lose more than he gains. Of course, it would be dramatic. But then, it would also underscore Bobby Pacquiao’s inability to win a big fight, and make it look like he’s making his brother take unnecessary risks for him to tie up loose ends.
The bottom line is that Manny Pacquiao deserves to be fighting for a world title, and he isn’t. And nobody’s doing anything about it.
