These guys with the Top Rank PR machine are great at getting people in important places to write stories about Manny Pacquiao.
But now they?ve got me all confused.
Last week I wrote something about Pacquiao being given a commission of Lieutenant Colonel in the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
This week, he graces the cover of Newsweek?s Latin American and Philippine editions, as he is referred to as ?The Godfather.?
A this point I don?t know whether to salute the guy or kiss his ring finger.
The writer of the piece, Lawrence Osborne, describes him as ?boxer, Godfather, saint and politician.? If you?ve been watching ?Boardwalk Empire? on HBO, you know that could describe Nucky Thompson, except for maybe the ?boxer? part, although Nucky got midgets to put on that kind of a show a little farther down the boardwalk.
Nucky isn?t really a ?Godfather? type, though. That?s more Michael Corleone?s style. Being a young man, I would assume Pacquiao could be modeled after Michael, if we were to see this played out in a movie. So would that make Freddie Roach his consigliare? There might be a Tom Hagen-like quality to him. I?m not sure he?d have been as diplomatic with a guy like Jack Woltz (who might be played by Gary Shaw) as Hagen was, but just the same, at the end of the day someone might just find a horse?s head under the covers if he were being unusually disagreeable.
You ain?t no bandleader, huh?
Bob Arum would seem to move around a little like Vito Corleone (who wanted his son to be a Senator, by the way). Am I right or am I wrong? The problem is, that doesn?t quite fit into the family flow chart, because it would make somebody like Todd duBoef the heir apparent, like Michael or, well, Sonny, if he hadn?t been gunned down on the causeway (now THAT was some bad manners).
Although when you think about it, duBoef seems like the kind of guy who could conceivably turn to Top Rank PR chief Lee Samuels and say, ?We got newspaper people on the payroll, don?t we? And they might like a story like that.?
And Lee would say, ?They might. They just might.?
