If you think the world of sports is insulated from the left-right political divide, you’re nuts, and people like Frances “The Fight Chick” Martel are proving it. If she were to write a boxing book, it would be titled “How to Talk to a PacNut (If You Must”).
My own novel is about a liberal sportscaster who runs afoul of the right wing’s predominance in the world of sports. So you won’t be surprised to learn that I accused Martel, who is fresh out of Harvard, of being denser than a teabagger Thursday, in print no less, because of something she wrote about Manny Pacquiao for Bay Area consumption on ringtalk.com.
Turns out I was right about politicizing Martel. She was outspokenly radical at Harvard and has gotten plenty of attention outside sports for her right-wing rants with hints of anti-semitism and other typical xenophobia.
It’s no surprise then that she claims Pacquiao would surely undergo the most stringent steroids testing, as Floyd Mayweather Jr. demanded in contract negotiations, if Manny weren’t guilty of using illegal substances to balloon to 146 pounds. (Here’s why he refuses.)
Martel has no use for “innocent until proven guilty.” She also doesn’t acknowledge that Pacquiao has passed many steroids tests without incident.
Martel predicted Pacquiao will beat Joshua Clottey this weekend, but she said it’s a win-win situation for him “because if he loses he will dispel the steroid rumors from the minds of many people, and if he wins, his core fan base, who care little about whether Pacquiao is pumping himself with steroids or gasoline at this point, will keep buying what he has to sell.”
She claims ongoing suspicions will bring about “clamor to bring about a serious investigation into the standard operating procedure at Pacman HQ.”
It gets worse. She says Pacquiao has stained boxing more than Antonio Margarito. “Pacquiao has left entire weight divisions in the dust, and now we’re so close to finding out he’s been cheating this whole time we can taste the deceit.”
Do you think she knows something we don’t? Of course not. She hasn’t done ANY reporting on Pacquiao’s bodily intake. But she can say without equivocation that Manny is a cheating criminal.
Pacquiao, who announced a suit against Mayweather and Golden Boy Promotions over false steroids accusations, should go after this kid right next week, before she does the kind of damage in the political arena that her allies are doing. Lying liar.
