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Philippines, 09 May 2024 |
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Manny Pacquiao and Eumir Marcial Strokes of Luck or Natural Freaks? By Teodoro Medina Reynoso PhilBoxing.com Tue, 21 Jul 2020  Marcial. It has been some 80 years since the Philippines first and last produced a world class big man in boxing in the person of Cipriano aka Ceferino Garcia who went on to reign as middleweight champion in the prewar. Strangely, that came at a time when Filipino fighters had first gained global prominence in the then lightest weight class--flyweight---through the illustrious trio of Francisco Guilledo, Benjamin Gan and Eleuterio Zapanta better known respectively as Pancho Villa, Small Montana and Little Dado. Since that period until near the end of the first decade of the new millennium, the country was able to produce many more world champions, mostly in the flyweights and the junior lightweights but the highest division that Filipinos had been able to conquer was the junior welterweight. That was until Manny Pacquiao won the WBO world championship in the welterweight class in 2009 by beating Miguel Cotto. Which he followed up with his winning the vacant WBC junior middleweight title in 2010 over Antonio Margarito. That's the highest division a Filipino fighter was able to win a world title at since Ceferino Garcia. What's amazing is that it took a fighter as Pacquiao who actually started his boxing career at light flyweight to accomplish, falling just a division below Garcia in winning a record eight world championships in as many weight classes. Now comes Eumir Felix Marcial, who like Manny started out in the flyweights and now is fighting at middleweights in the amateurs, hoping to win an Olympic medal next year in Tokyo and later a world title in the pros. Marcial has recently signed up with Manny's MP Promotion to handle his pro career even as he keeps an eye on a 2021 Tokyo Olympics medal finish in the middleweight class. Truth is, even as an amateur, Marcial has already achieved some sort of historic record as the first Pinoy to win high honors in middleweight boxing, finishing with a silver medal in the 2019 World Championship and winning the gold in the recent Olympics qualifier in Jordan. Like Manny, he is a high achiever in various weight classes, winning his first gold in the 2011 World Youth as a flyweight and collecting medals of various colors as he went up in weights, including consecutive golds in the SEA Games first as welterweight and later as middleweight. Personally, I think if Marcial succeeds with an Olympic medal finish in Tokyo, his professional stint whatever it leads or leaves him will be almost anti climactic. After all, not even an Olympic gold can assure a fruitful world championship quest or reign in the pros. Ask Ryota Murata who has to content himself with a consolation secondary world belt at middleweight after topping the London Olympics in 2012 and fighting as pro for seven years and counting. But of course, it will be much, much better if Marcial would also have an equally successful career as a pro in the middleweight division as that would be a confirmation that Ceferino Garcia was not a rare stroke of luck and that Filipinos can also not only compete well but even excel above the welterweights. Manny has proven that despite lacking the size which the 5-8 well built Eumir does not lack, albeit in a division where near six footers abound. But does that mean Manny and Eumir, having scaled the weights all the way from flyweights to the middleweights are strokes of luck, natural freaks or aberrations in Philippine boxing? Or there are really Filipinos who are endowed with size and possessed of the natural capability to fight in the higher weights comparable to Caucasians and those of African descents that are just awaiting discovery for proper nurturing and development? That we are yet to find out starting with Eumir Felix Marcial. ABAP scouts saw something special years back in Eumir that Shelly Finkel also saw for some time that triggered his interest in him. Could Eumir and Manny be the templates of what to look for in our future search of fighters in the higher divisions both for the amateur and the pros? 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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