If Manny Pacquiao?s ?Dear Oscar? letter sticks, the blooming romance between the two boxing idols will hit the skids even worse than it did when Oscar and Golden Boy failed in their attempt to Shanghai Pacman away from Bob Arum and Top Rank.
The public perception is that Da Pacman?s missive?s message was simple: hey, Oscar, you are to use Don King?s pet phrase, an FMF. The first word is Fired and you can figure out the M and the F.
As it stands today, Pacquiao and lawyer Franklin ?Jeng? Gacal are seen by many as occupying the high moral ground, if there is such a place in the slimy, sleazy world of big-time boxing. Many believe, right or wrong, that Pacquiao is eschewing a possible $20 million, once in a fabulous career super jackpot on principle.
Most people who care about De la Hoya-Pacquiao, whether they love the idea or loathe it, could care less about who was getting what percentage and why. Instead, the people who want to see such a spectacle will mostly blame Oscar and his company for excessive greed. The naysayers, who mocked the bout as a physical mismatch, don?t give a whit about why the Dec. 6 Las Vegas megabout was aborted, their just happy it was.
But I think Pacquiao?s letter telling the far richer Oscar to kiss him where the sun don?t shine may have gained the ?National Fist? from the Philippines a whole new cheering section for his future fights.
Call it the De La Hoya Trainers Who Got Fired Club.
When Oskie turned pro in 1992, his tutor was Mexican legend Jesus Rivero, commonly known as ?The Professor.?
Rivero got canned, presumably because Oscar?s control freak father Joel, wanted him gone. Rivero claimed Oscar never gave him the bad news, leaving that to an underling.
Then came in over his head Robert Alcazar.
Alcazar got canned and also said Oscar never informed him directly of his fate.
Then came two specialists, proven pros. Bob Arum stuck his longtime pal Gil Clancy into Oscar?s camp but fighter and trainer never clicked and Clancy?s role was so diminished he basically became a cheerleader, chirping to newspaper reporters about how golden the Golden Boy really was.
Clancy got canned. If memory serves, he got the axe in the turmoil when De La Hoya, having lost to Felix Trinidad and then Shane Mosley, parted ways with Arum and Top Rank. Clancy never got a phone call from Oscar, either.
Motown?s roving Kronkmeister, Manny Steward, joined Team De La Hoya. I think this was when Arum was still driving the Oscar bus.
I clearly recall running into Manny and seeing this grown man openly weep as he told me He had been fired without nary a direct word from the fighter.
In talking to Yahoo.com last year, De La Hoya played off the fired trainers and how their dismissals were handled.
?The only trainers I ever hired were (Floyd) Mayweather and (Freddie) Roach,? De La Hoya said. ?The others were pressured on me by managers or promoters at that time or whoever,? De La Hoya said.
Significantly, Oscar did not mention Papa Joel?s heavy influence in some of the firings.
I wonder how much more in the ring success Oscar might?ve had without all these trainers playing musical chairs. What if Oscar had settled on trainer and stayed with him? Surely the stability would?ve been a plus.
Now, with what he calls his final pro fight looming, I guess it?s idle speculation as to the past.
But, as far as the future, I think Pacquiao has a new cheering section. It?s composed of trainers who were cavalierly spit canned by De La Hoya.
Manny did to Oscar, it would seem, what Oscar did to all of them.
