It may or may not change the outcome of the in flux Manny Pacquiao Opponent Derby but one strong precinct is making its final vote as you read this on Monday.
Back from the long Thanksgiving weekend, the powers that be at HBO, led by Ross Greenburg and PPV maven Mark Taffet, were going to make their Pacquaio preference known to promoters Bob Arum and Richie Rich Schaefer of Golden Boy.
I don?t know if this will amount to a voice veto for frontunner foe, WBC lightweight champion David Diaz, but the HBO suits clearly prefer Juan Manuel Marquez as the March 15 opponent for Megamanny. If they have their druthers, it will be JMM in the opposite corner for the following credible reasons:
1?Holding a PPV fight amidst March Madness (college basketball) is never easy and at least Juan Ma is a known commodity to most of the boxing public even though he is not the super Mexican ring icon type that Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales were when they battled Pacman. David Diaz is no proven TV boxing commodity as his only tube time relevance comes from barely beating Morales.
2?Rewind factor. Taffet and his marketing machine does not need a series of press conferences all over the country. All the PPV pushers have to do is to keep replaying the tumultuous first round of the first JMM-MP fight, a round in which the Mexican was on the seat of his pantalones tres tiempos.
3?MP?s venture into the 135 pound class from 130 pounds is a slender reed, indeed, to use promotionally. Especially when Uncle Bob keeps blabbing about how it?s no problemo because Manny was 144 pounds when he walked into the ring against MAB last time. It?s not like Manny was jumping from 130 to 140 or from 135 to welterweight.
4?Mexican Mexican vs. Mexican-American . No Mexican American fighter fires up the Mexican fan base like a real Mexican from Mexico does. That?s fact although Fernando Vargas crossed this divide fairly well with his fan base. David Diaz is identified first as David Diaz from Chicago. Another example might be how many Mexicans booed Oscar De La Hoya in his first fight against icon Julio Cesar Chavez. I?m hardly comparing Marquez to the legend from Culiacan but you get the point. Taffet might delineate, for example, how Juan Ma moves the PPV sales in San Diego, El Paso, Houston, Dallas and even in Detroit and Chicago in a way that David D cannot replicate.
5?HBO may walk and talk softly when outsiders are looking un but they still carry a big stick. Who?s to say they couldn?t toss a few carrots, a TV date or two, to Arum so that he is pacified and he then endorses Marquez? Golden Coach Freddie Roach is already banging the drum for his favorite promoter?s fighter and, if Manny is on the fence, a Roach-Arum combo might tip the balance in his mind.
6?Surprise move. Maybe HBO agrees with Manny that he and JMM will be a bigger show if it is a unification bout. In other words, maybe they would like to see Manny come in with his own title belt. That would push Pacman-Marquez into next fall but so what?
Everyone else has had their say publicly and privately. Now the guys who write the big checks get their say.
If this was a presidential election, HBO could be compared to California, Ohio or Florida, to a big state with plenty of electoral votes.
What HBO says will probably tip it one way or another. It says here that HBO is waving the Golden Boy-Juan Maneul Marquez flag.
Note to John Chavez: I know I said Sunday it would be Diaz but, as Uncle Bob once said, I was lying yesterday and today I am telling the truth.
