It’s the silly season now, with only four weeks remaining before Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito, stand in the ring at Cowboys Stadium, palatial home of the Dallas NFL team and a venue where probably 95 percent of the audience will be studying the humungous TV screen rather than the ring itself.
The well has run dry in Baguio, folks. No doubt about it.
Every possible story thread or angle has already been exhausted.
Pacman Fatigue Syndrome is setting in even among the most enthusiastic rank and file troops in the Pacquiao Worldwide Army (PWA).
Margarito fans are about as hard to find as ardent Floyd Mayweather Jr. fans these days. At least on the Internet, the majority of those braying about how the Mexican will shock the world are not so much pro Tone Loc as they are straight up ?Pacroid? haters.
Crafty veteran Bob Arum arrives in Baguio Saturday and you may be sure he will produce the strongest winds the Strawberry City has seen in years.
But even Arum’s huffing and puffing will not obscure the fact that this is no ?Fight of the Century,? no attraction that is greatly stirring the non-hardcore boxing fans.
Arum knows that putting this fight in Texas was a mistake, albeit one necessitated by the Nevada State Athletic Commission fumbling the ball as it sought to be politically correct and polite to its neighbor commission in California.
No disrespect to our genial host, Jerry Jones or the welcoming folks in the Dallas-Arlington-Ft. Worth Metroplex, where the zoning laws are strictly take me out to the sprawlgame.
But I bet the powers that be and the working stiffs at the MGM Grand are still smoking mad at how the NSAC, with the exception of spitfire Chairperson Pat Lundvall, pushed this fight from the Silver State to the Lone Star State.
It was Nevada’s dumbest boxing move since it similarly exiled the Mike Tyson-Lennox Lewis heavyweight title bout to the backwoods of Memphis. And I’m not (spare) ribbing you.
Even Sharron Angle could deducte that.
Back to the tedium, the boredom, the ennui emanating from Pacland.
Coach Roach has deflated Pacquiao’s basektballs and is threatening to cut the nets down on the backboards at the Cooyeesaan Hotel courts.
Boring!
Ho and hum.
Ditto for Pacman has sinusitis and Pacman’s left foot is sore.
We’ve all seen this movie before.
What we need is a stimulating training camp story even if it’s not true.
MEDINA FLOORS PACQUIAO
TAPIA HAMMERS PACMAN IN SPARRING
MADAME AURING GUARANTEES MARGARITO VICTORY
MADAME AURING RELOCATING FROM MANILA TO TIJUANA, IMMEDIATELY
TRACES OF METH FOUND IN ALEX ARIZA’S PROTEIN SHAKE THERMOS, DNA TEST OF STRAW COME UP 100 PERCENT MANNY
KONCZ DECKS ARIZA, BUBOY IN PARKING LOT SCRAP, CALLS OUT ROB PETERS, BOSTON BADBOY
Something along these lines, that’s what we need to inject some excitement into this fight runup.
Finally, let’s recall the greatest prefight gimmick ever because it took place in Texas also.
Arum ran a show at the Astrodome, then called ?the Eighth Wonder of the World,? which featured Thomas Hearns and Sugar Ray Leonard in co-features.
It was 1981, and Leonard was fighting a Mogens Palle guy, an African by way of Denmark name of Ayub Kalule.
Arum flack Unswerving Irving Rudd explained that a fellow with Kalule was an actual voodoo priest out of Africa who was going to put a hex on Leonard.
Rudd spoke with tongue firmly implanted in cheek as was his wont. The guy really pumped gas at a Houston service station
A media newcomer from Washington, DC, named Rock Newman (later the voluble promoter of heavyweight champ Riddick Bowe) took exception to this pitch, calling it a racial stereotype and an insult to black people.
We were all at poolside for a media cocktail hour, something like that, and Arum cosigned Rudd’s angle.
Newman kept squawking.
Suddenly, from the sky, came a pair of blackbirds, perhaps angry crows as opposed to Counting Crows.
The crowds divebombed Newman’s head.
Maybe they did not like his all white clothing, including a dashiki.
Newman dove into the Astrodome Motel pool to escape the aviary attack.
As Newman dried off, the promoter, the publicist and the witch doctor smiled brightly.
?I don’t know,” Rudd said, ?if he’s a registered witch doctor. I don’t know if he’s a licensed witch doctor. I don’t know if this man is considered a witch doctor by other witch doctors.
?But, from what we just saw, I wouldn’t want to be the guy to say he’s a phony witch doctor.?
So don’t ask which doctor the sagging Margarito-Pacquiao promotion needs.
Just ask witch doctor.
