MANNY Pacquiao?s mind is now clearly focused on his battle for the lone congressional district of South Cotabato and his efforts to oust incumbent Rep. Darlene Antonino-Custodio, who is seeking her final term. Both his lawyer Franklin ?Jeng? Gacal and close friend and confidant Rex ?Wakee? Salud, claim Pacquiao?s campaign is picking up and his victory over Jorge Solis last Sunday had allegedly sent some of the supporters of Custodio lining up to join Pacquiao?s camp.
To us, Pacquiao?s ?Blaze of Glory? battle with undefeated but unknown Mexican Jorge Solis was a carefully orchestrated event designed to hype a fight that honestly had nothing much to offer in terms of competitiveness for the Filipino ring icon or even in terms of major financial rewards.
Despite his glowing pronouncements at a Manila Hotel news conference last December, in which Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said Pacquiao would earn a $5-million purse in every fight, not counting pay-per-view income, and would be scheduled on such extremely popular entertainment shows as the one hosted by Jay Leno, the actualities have fallen far short of the commitments.
To begin with, by Pacquiao?s own admission, his purse was $2 million. As for the Leno show, my son Richard, who is a fan of the television host, has been tuned in daily waiting for Pacquiao to appear to no avail. We guess it?s going to be a very long wait.
Pacquiao has insisted time and time again that he is perfectly capable of doing two things at the same time, which is difficult for most mortals, especially if the tasks are as demanding as training for fights against top-class opponents and serving the needs of his political constituents.
The Solis fight, in that regard, made good sense. Besides, to be fair to Pacquiao, after the demanding and exciting trilogy with legendary Mexican Erik ?El Terrible? Morales, he had a right to a comparatively easy fight. Nobody, who knows his boxing, will dispute the fact. What upset quite a few, including such astute observers of the fight scene as hard-hitting Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist Recah Trinidad as well as us, was the sneaky effort to foist upon a largely unsuspecting public the fact that Solis was a legitimate threat and a dangerous opponent.
In this connection, Pacquiao is not to blame?it?s Arum, his publicists and a few Filipino media people, who tended to swallow everything they said as the gospel truth, perhaps as a courtesy to the Pacman, who had been good to them. As Trinidad pointed out in his column, ?the sorry thing with the last Pacquiao show is that, marketed as an epic, it willingly bordered on the comical.?
After Pacquiao disposed of Solis in the eighth round, the Mexican tried to keep the fires burning by claiming that his wife hit harder than Pacquiao, which was ridiculous coming from someone who was hammered to the canvas twice and was knocked out. The devastating nature of this Filipino punching machine has been embedded in the minds of the Mexicans, who have felt the fury of his fists in a long list of demolitions in the ring. To question or ridicule his punching power borders on the insane.
?What now, Pacquiao?? is the question on everybody?s mind. Obviously he has a tough fight on his hands against an 85-pound wisp of a lady, who is intelligent, charming and comes from a well-established and respected political family that has carved a name for itself over the past few decades. The challenge for the Pacquiao campaign leaders is to hammer out a plan that would hopefully translate the fighter?s incredible popularity into votes on election day this May. It isn?t by any means an easy task because an increasingly aware population will look for something more viable than mere popularity, although in recent years, we have had the spectacle of show business personalities and sports superstars using their popularity and name recall to propel them into public office.
To the credit of Pacquiao, he has, in recent years, beginning with the 11th-round demolition of Marco Antonio Barrera in November 2003 at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, emerged as a genuine national treasure. People from all walks of life idolize him for his spectacular achievements in the ring. He is, without a shadow of doubt, the greatest Filipino fighter of all-time. But his greatness, in all honesty, must be limited to his exploits in the ring, because in the totality of ring greatness and outstanding human qualities, the late Gabriel ?Flash? Elorde stands supreme.
This does not necessarily mean that Pacquiao hasn?t shown some fine traits. He is kind and generous, but against this are a litany of unfortunate shortcomings or weaknesses, including gambling in casinos, in pool halls and at cockfights, compounded by his propensity for long hours and late nights, which boxing analysts are convinced will eventually take its toll on him, physically.
Pacquiao?s tendency to surround himself with newfound adherents, who have often been classified as sycophants and leeches, who suck on his hard-earned wealth and to virtually turn his back on those, who stood by him in his early years, have also hurt him. A classic example was sometime trainer and friend Lito Mondejar, a boxing man from the early 1960s, who used to carry his championship belt into the ring. Mondejar was unceremoniously junked in favor of a local city mayor and a cockfighting aficionado, who rode on Pacquiao?s popularity for his own ends during the fights against Morales.
We were informed not so long ago that Joe Ramos, who was supposedly Pacquiao?s chief-of-staff in the United States, had gypped him of millions of pesos. Pacquiao insiders told us that when he discovered that his income tax refund from the Internal Revenue Service had been withdrawn by Ramos, he fired him. Turns out that Pacquiao, trusting Ramos, opened a joint account with the Los Angeles-based Filipino so that he didn?t have to bother with the details of paying the bills and other sundries. We learned that when Ramos received the tax refund check, he deposited it in their joint account and when the check was cleared, allegedly withdrew the money. Nobody knows exactly how much, but there were estimates of up to $200,000 or nearly P10 million.
The tendency to trust people without discerning their real intentions and their loyalty has unfortunately hurt Pacquiao. One of the constant peeves of Filipinos, who are close to Pacquiao is the presence of a jobless Canadian identified as Michael Koncz, who decided to latch on to Pacquiao for his own benefit. Koncz was the same unknown individual, who used to hang around the Wild Card Gym and got to know trainer Freddie Roach, Pacquiao and his handlers, as well as the fighters of the famed ALA Gym of Tony Aldeguer.
He wormed his way into the good graces of Aldeguer, who allowed him to arrange some fights for Czar Amonsot, Z ?The Dream? Gorres and Rey ?Boom Boom? Bautista in the US. Koncz also sneaked flyweight Diosdado Gabi, who was managed by Gov. Manny Pi?ol, out of the country and handled him for a couple of fights, including a world title fight against International Boxing Federation champion Vic Darchinyan, in which he lost by an eighth-round KO.
When Gabi complained to several people about how he was being maltreated, Roach and journalist Winchell Campos virtually rescued Gabi from the clutches of Koncz and the trainer took care of him, eventually signing him up with Golden Boy Promotions. Koncz serves as Arum?s watchdog over Pacquiao and never leaves his side. There were reports that Roach had even provided him with an apartment when his home in Orange County was taken over for non-payment of installments and that Pacquiao himself had given him $15,000.
As an Arum man, Koncz has continued to do his will and try to drive a wedge between Pacquiao and Roach, since Arum was upset in the first instance when Roach was instrumental in arranging a dinner meeting with Oscar de la Hoya and the signing of a seven-fight contract in mid-September last year for which Pacquiao received a goodwill bonus of $350,000 and a $150,000 advance on his first fight.
Two months later, Arum upped the ante and Pacquiao signed a four-year contract for which Arum gave him $1 million. The result was that Golden Boy sued Arum for tortuous interference in Los Angeles, while Arum asked a Las Vegas court to decide on which contract was legal and binding. That issue still hasn?t been resolved by the courts, but both sides have expressed confidence of being upheld. Only time will tell.
In the meantime, Pacquiao, who could have earned $7 million, according to former manager Shelly Finkel if he fought Barrera in a rematch, opted to stick with Arum and after a series of high profile announcements about a fight in the gambling enclave of Macau at the plush Wynn Hotel & Casino, Arum retreated to San Antonio and picked an undefeated, but unknown fighter, Jorge Solis. Solis was not known because he hadn?t beaten any fighter of quality. In fact, the only fighter worth mentioning in Solis? ring career was World Boxing Council no. 2 super featherweight Humberto Soto. Their fight on Sept. 17, 2004 ended in a no-contest after three rounds due to an accidental clash of heads. It was probably a blessing in disguise for Solis, who had been knocked down earlier in the round and would probably have been knocked out.
After his victory over Solis, Pacquiao indicated he wanted a rematch with Juan Manuel Marquez in September. Top Rank publicists announced that the fight would take place, although Arum didn?t have the name of Marquez on his wish list. He was obviously looking ahead at a possible Pacquiao-Soto fight since he handles Soto and Pacquiao, for the time being at least.
The plan was obvious. Arum set up Pacquiao?s younger brother Bobby Pacquiao to fight Soto on June 9 at New York?s Madison Square Garden with the hope that Soto would batter Bobby. That would fit nicely into the theme of Pacquiao wanting to avenge his brother?s loss and taking on Soto. You can almost see it coming.
Koncz, who was much of the time with Justin Fortune, the conditioning expert and assistant of Roach at the Wild Card Gym during the San Antonio sojourn, was left behind in the US to look after Bobby?s needs.
We were told that Koncz didn?t have Bobby stay in the plush apartment of Pacquiao in LA despite the fact that it was free since Pacquiao had paid one year?s rent in advance according to Salud and it was not far from the Wild Card Gym where Fortune and then Roach could, after the De la Hoya-Floyd Mayweather massive ?The World Awaits? fight card, buckle down to preparing Bobby for the battle with Soto.
Trouble is, Roach banned Koncz from the Wild Card Gym over his failure to pay a debt of some $3,000 and since there is no love lost between Roach and Arum and Koncz is the eyes and ears of the Top Rank boss, he decided to take Bobby to Las Vegas to train, almost surely, at the Top Rank Gym. Viva Sports/Standard Today was informed that Bobby was housed in the home of a certain Dr. Berberabe, who is supposed to be a close friend of Willie Revillame and is also a known philantrophist.
This fits into the scenario for Fortune, who last Sunday had a nasty argument with Roach to set out on his own and begin by training Bobby in Las Vegas thereby hurting operations at the Wild Card Gym since he is their no. 1 conditioning expert and also a trainer. The split, which was first reported by Salven Lagumbay of Philboxing.com, was also relayed to us as part of the intrigues resorted to by Koncz and Arum to create dissension and to eventually?hopefully?get Pacquiao to leave Roach.
Although both Roach and Fortune deny they quarreled over the fact that Arum had the trainer?s fees and expenses check made out to Fortune, who works for Roach, instead of the former Trainer of the Year himself, our informant told us that they had a heated exchange last Sunday, but decided to settle their differences the following morning after Fortune paid Roach his agreed upon share. Beyond that, he said it didn?t look good for the trainers to be perceived as quarreling over money.
The trouble started after a Filipino journalist, who was with the Pacquiao camp, filed a story claiming that Fortune didn?t want Roach in the Pacman?s corner on fight night. Although once again, Fortune denied the story and the journalist was accused of fabrication, our informants in Team Pacquiao and the Wild Card Gym tell us he was reporting the truth after he overheard a conversation. In fact, a report on Thursday hinted that Fortune would move out and set up his own gym. For the time being, it seems likely he would train Bobby in Las Vegas and not the Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles, unless Pacquiao orders it.
