if Charlie Sheen wants to learn what good times really are, he could talk to Filipino and Filpino-American fight fans right now.
Pilipino Pride stock must be soaring to a new, all-time high now that America’s two main boxing channels, Home Box Office (HBO) and Showtime, are both headlining fighters from General Santos City, Mindanao, Republic of the Philippines.
Gabriel “Flash” Elorde Jr. and all the other Pinoy ring greats of yesteryear would be ecstatic to know that Pambasang Kamao and Congressman Manny Pacquiao is the Number One attraction on the Showtime/CBS broadcast combination after promoter Bob Arum abruptly ditched perennial leader HBO.
I’m not saying that “Filipino Flash” Nonito Donaire, just age 28, has attained the supernova status of Pacman, that would be absurd. From what promoters not affiliated with Arum and his Top Rank outfit tell me, the HBO rating for Donaire’s Feb. 19, sizzling KO 2 over Mexico’s Fernando Montiel were hardly scintillating.
But only hardcore fight fans across our 50 states had any inkling about Montiel. It wasn’t like HBO put the high powered lamps on that fight like they did for the disappointing Devon Alexander-Timothy Bradley bout Jan. 29.
And Donaire’s bravura performance…well, apparently HBO ate it up like popcorn because now the network nabobs are rushing to put the WBC/WBO bantamweight king back on their airwaves as soon as May 28 for a unification bout against another little known here champion, the WBA 118-pound ruler Anselmo Moreno of Panama.
(When he wears a hat, this Anselmo, be sure it’s a Panama hat.)
Clealry, HBO is preparing the “I’m ready for my closeup” superstar in the making hype and buildup for Donaire and it will advance with rapidity as long as he keeps winning in such exciting style.
It won’t be long, I say, before you see Nonito and wife Rachel getting the HBO 24/7 constant camera coverage treatment and neither one is media shy.
Trust me, folks, bantam cocks such as these normally get short shrift from HBO albeit Showtime is coincidcentally running a 118-pound tournament.
By rushing to get lefty Donaire back on HBO, Ross Greenburg and associates are also plotting how to return Pacquiao back in the fold after what Arum has said is a one bout with archrival Showtime.
In the interest of fair play and cultural exchange, don’t you think GMA and ABS-CBN need to start giving some of our red, white and blue fighters–Bradley, for example–more play?
Or will it become all Pinoys, all the time at both HBO and Showtime?
Maybe they alter their names to PBO (Pinoy Boxing Office) and Pinoytime?
Just a thought…
If you’re a Filipino or Fil-Am fight fan, you’re having more good times than Charlie Sheen and his two blonde godesses right now.
