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Philippines, 19 May 2024 |
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With Tokyo Olympics in Doubt, Marcial Could Turn Pro Now By Teodoro Medina Reynoso PhilBoxing.com Wed, 29 Apr 2020  With the Wuhan Corona Virus pandemic rendering the holding of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in deep doubt even next year to the point of forcing authorities to totally scrap it, our ace amateur boxer Eumir Felix Marcial has no more reason to delay his decision to turn pro ASAP. Truth to tell, there has really been no legal hindrance to Marcial going to the paid ranks as early as after his topping the Asia-Oceania qualifiers in Jordan last February as the Olympics has already opened its doors to professional boxers, in fact other pro athletes since years back. In fact, in the last 2019 Manila Southeast Asian Games, Charley Suarez who has turned pro a few years ago, was allowed to participate, even winning the gold in the men's lightweight class. Suarez has returned to the pros with the option of making himself available for the final pre-Olympics world qualifiers supposedly set this June in Paris which is also now in limbo. Most likely, Suarez will stick it with the pros going forward. The only thing that has been holding him back is his personal commitment to his principals and benefactors at the ABAP, the national sports association for boxing, that he will prioritize representing the Philippines and hopefully win a medal for the country in the Tokyo Games. But with the Tokyo Olympics in serious doubts due to the Covid-19 crisis with no less than the Japanese organizers seeing it not pushing through even next year and hence its possible cancellation, Marcial could also now temporarily set aside that personal vow and go on to join the pro ranks. As things stands now, Marcial is in an enviable position with at least three big pro boxing promoters, including Manny Pacquiao and Pacquiao's past manager Shelly Finkel, bidding to sign him up with hefty signing bonus to boot. Pacquiao reportedly is not offering any signing bonus but has promised not to get any share from Marcial's purse and even to pay for his expenses while training or not fighting. Whoever Marcial ends up with, he will be a great, great welcome addition to the ranks of Filipino professional fighters especially in the higher weight classes or the big boys league as we term it colloquially. Outside of Sen. Pacquiao, we have no world caliber fighters above the super featherweight class. We used to have Mercito Gesta and Romero Duno at lightweight but both have suffered bad losses lately. Our best lightweight fighter currently is Roldan Aldea but he is not even highly rated regionally. Our current leading fighters in the super lightweight and the welterweight divisions are Jeritz Chavez, JR Inson, Alvin Lagumbay and Al Rivera but like Aldea, they are not also highly rated in the regional rankings. Joe Noynay is our highest rated fighter outside of Pacquiao above the featherweights, currently ranked number 5 by the World Boxing Organization in the junior lightweight class. We are highly rated and well represented in the featherweight division down with a number of Pinoy fighters even ranked number one in the minimumweight, flyweight and bantamweight classes or at top five in some divisions. Hopefully with Charley Suarez and Felix Marcial, we will have two highly skilled and experienced former amateur standouts helping our fighting Senator and legend, Manny Pacquiao in carrying the flag in the pros in the big boys league. The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.  |
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