World Boxing Council (WBC) president Jose Sulaiman has publicly announced that Filipino superstar Manny Pacquiao ‘is scared to face Juan Manuel Marquez.’
This after the WBC top honcho received the letter signed by Pacquiao last week, which stated that he is declining his mandatory status to challenge Marquez for the latter’s WBC super-featherweight title.
“Pacquiao has a mouse in his shoe. After he knocked down Marquez three times, the latter rose to give him a boxing lesson,” explained Sulaiman.
The WBC top honcho also indicated that perhaps Pacquiao ‘does not know that he could have received 50 percent of the bid as the challenger” had he participated in the purse bid for the fight. Apparently, the WBC was ready to waive its 75-25 rule in favor of the champion in an event of a purse bid, knowing that Pacquiao is the more popular fighter between the two.
With the decision not to accept the fight with Marquez, it was noted by Boxlatino that Pacquiao had already committed three mistakes in his career: First, having signed a contract with both Golden Boy Promotions and then Top Rank; second, having run and lost in the political arena, and third, declining the fight with Marquez, the WBC champion.
Despite the letter, the WBC will still wait for the June 18 deadline for the free negotiations to come up with a concrete understanding between the two camps.
The WBC’s executive secretary Mauricio Sulaiman, in a separate interview with Boxnoticias, also added that he has been hurt by the current state of Pacquiao’s career.
Sulaiman noted that it pains him to know that ‘somebody’ was giving bad advice to Pacquiao, while adding that the WBC Board of Governors will soon decide who will replace Pacquiao as mandatory challenger to Marquez.
Earlier, Pacquiao’s close adviser Rex ‘Wakee’ Salud, who is also a close ally of the Sulaiman’s, also expressed his displeasure at the refusal of Pacquiao to accept his mandatory status against Marquez.
Salud said he was not aware if Pacquiao had fully understood the repercussions of his letter to Sulaiman, hinting that somebody was giving Pacquiao ‘wrong advice’ concerning his latest move.
Salud, a veteran in the fight scene, noted that Pacquiao should have waited for the WBC to pressure Marquez to defend the title, and knowing that there is no love lost between the promoters of both fighters, there was a strong chance Marquez could have been stripped of the crown.
