BOXING patriot Rex Wakee Salud, who tried but luckily failed to bet on Rodel Mayol, said the failed world boxing title-seeker has been released from the Tokyo hospital to where he was rushed late last Saturday.
There are two plans for Mayol: move up to the light flyweight (108 lbs) class or fight again for the minimum weight world title if champion Eagle Kyowa decides to vacate the 105-lbs throne.
The 27-year-old Kyowa, an exported Thai fighter by the name of Del Jalaphan who uses a Japanese tag, has been having a terrible time making the minimum weight.
“If the title is vacated, Mayol would be automatically available to bid anew for the world 105-lbs title,” Salud explained.
But before Mayol gets back on the road, Salud suggested the 24-year-old boxer must be made to undergo a drastic overhaul in training.
Mayol should be taught the discipline of a true prizefighter. He must start behaving like a professional.
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“Kawawa si Matsuoka, sobra bait, todo gastos (Matsuoka should be pitied, he’s too kind and very generous,” Salud said.
Yasuo Matsuoka is the amiable Japanese newspaper advertising/circulation magnate who manages Mayol, often caring for the fighter from Mandaue City more kindly than he would for his own son.
But there lies the other fault. In caring for his boxer, Matsuoka also tends to be soft.
Salud did agree that the Japanese manager is sometimes too good to be true.
But what Mayol should do to repay the manager’s fatherly concern is indulge in honest hard work.
No question about the skills, not to mention guts.
“He just lost steam, he tired down in the second half,” said Salud, who saw it all from ringside at the Korakuen Hall.
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Terry Carter, who yielded his contractual right over Mayol to Matsuoka for close to P4 million, was also in Tokyo over the weekend.
He bared serious flaws that he had observed in Mayol’s preparation for the championship chase.
Carter said he had checked on Mayol more than a couple of times and found the boxer just sitting around, doing nothing, when he should have been killing himself to reach the peak form required in the championship.
Respected Cebu sportsman Tony Aldeguer, who discovered and initially developed Mayol, said the talented boxer did not visit or train even once in his gym during the final stretch of training in Cebu.
“Mr. Aldeguer knew all the while Mayol was not a hundred percent but could not do anything,” noted Manila Bulletin’s premier boxing writer Nick Giongco.
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Giongo, together with this reporter, had refused to divulge the unsavory details in Mayol’s regimen as bared by the two experts who had previously handled him.
However, there was an agreement that these discovered discrepancies would be made public if and when Mayol loses, a sort of postmortem.
Anyway, when Matsuoka, Mayol’s manager, was asked about their next plan following his fighter’s tragic loss to the 27-year-old defending champion, the Japanese could only stare blankly.
“Plans, what plans? Nothing now, we don’t know,” Matsuoka stammered at the lobby of the famed Tokyo Dome Hotel, where Mayol enjoyed the perks of luxury suite life before the title fight.
Now, as reported by Wakee Salud, Matsuoka has new, solid plans for Mayol.
The manager has also vowed that they would do better next time.
That, doing better, won’t be easy.
In order to produce a truly disciplined world title-seeker, Matsuoka has to lay down new rules in charting Mayol’s training regimen.
Mayol, the way he had behaved in his last fight, should deserve a manager who’s both hard and strict.
Unfortunately, these harsh traits don’t come as second nature to Matsuoka-san.
Matsuoka should instead hire a grizzled jail warden watch over his tardy world title hopeful.
