IN a big battle that will be decided by words, Manny Pacquiao has not been making any noise.
Pacquiao wore a dark blue long-sleeved shirt and dark slacks.
That exactly was how the Star’s main man Joaquin Henson described the Filipino world boxing celebrity in a report from New York on Wednesday.
Pacquiao is fighting but he’s not taking off his shirt and putting on the boxing gloves.
He’s not, unlike in the run-up to his last big fight in Las Vegas, talking much.
He’s not talking at all.
Pacquiao is in the midst of a federal court hearing on the $33-million suit he filed against New Jersey promoter Murad Muhammad.
* * *
A jury of eight has been picked by federal judge Loretta Peska, 56, from an initial pool of 30, Henson said.
The jury is made up of six women and two men, all from New York. Only one is black.
The jurors are composed of a bank officer, an insurance underwriter, an ad agency art director, an anthropology professor, a real estate executive assistant, and an advertising employee, Henson reported.
Witnesses are expected to conclude their testimonies Tuesday next week.
Henson added that, in picking the eight jurors, Preska made sure they “had no biases on issues related to boxing and no links to individuals involved in the sport.”
Preska maintained that the case must be decided on issues of fact, based on evidence — direct and circumstantial.
“The only evidence to consider will be from witnesses and exhibits,” the judge said.
* * *
As the defendant, promoter Murad Muhammad will have to convince the jury he did nothing untoward in taking hefty cuts from Pacquiao’s purses, mainly the profits from the pay-per-view superfight against Mexican Erik Morales in March.
The main charge against Murad revolves around malversation, with the American promoter being accused of taking unlawful portions from Pacquiao’s deserved earnings starting with the world title bout against African Lehlo Ledwabah in 2001.
From initial feeds, it appears Pacquiao’s lawyers have enough ammunition to pin down the flamboyant and talkative Murad, former security man of Muhammad Ali.
Boxing expert Hermie Rivera said famous fight lawyer Judd Burnstein “has guaranteed a court win for Pacquiao in his suit against his former handlers.”
* * *
Murad is expected to offer the fantastic tale that it was he and himself alone who made Pacquiao an international boxing celebrity.
How untrue. “Everybody knows that Pacquiao was already world caliber when Murad hit the jackpot after he managed to squeeze Pacquiao in as a last-minute replacement in the Ledwabah defense,” Rivera explained.
Pacquiao’s first big step to stardom in the US was nothing deliberate or planned, as Murad would love to assert in an effort to grab full credit.
Pacquiao fought Ledwabah in the Mike Tyson undercard as a last-minute substitute.
Rivera said Murad is offering a very weak excuse in insisting Pacquiao was his creation.
Why? Because Pacquiao had been a WBC flyweight champ, meaning he was not exactly raw and obscure, before Murad could gamble on the sensational southpaw from General Santos City.
Anyway, granting he indeed discovered, developed, coddled and goaded Pacquiao to stardom, should this grant Murad the right to take liberties at the fighter’s purses?
* * *
Anyway, Murad who’s capable of declaiming non-stop for a week, could be talking himself hoarse to deflect the charges.
Not Pacquiao. Prior to leaving Manila for the hearing, the knockout artist had kept mum on his legal battle against Murad.
Maybe Pacquiao is fully convinced he has a solid win-win case, and there’s no use risking his edge with unnecessary blabber.
This brand-new Pacquiao in New York is very different from the over-anxious plodder who faced Erik Morales in March.
Let’s replay part of a postmortem on that failed bid in Las Vegas: “Pacquiao himself admitted he had lacked the necessary shifts and movements, mainly in the lateral area. In a fight wherein the requirement for victory was for Pacquiao to surpass himself, he proved predictable, tentative and often hollow. He also had to do a lot of talking in the pre-fight, unlike Morales who stayed focused, mysteriously quiet in his camp up the Mexican mountains.”
The prayer here is for Pacquiao to quietly stick to his newfound characteristic.
Silence could prove golden outside the federal court, but it could be doubly so for Pacquiao in a major boxing campaign.
