SEVERAL WEEKS ago, upon his arrival from the States to accompany Manny Pacquiao who was to start his training for his rubber match against Erik Morales, we talked to a somewhat dejected Rex “Wakee” Salud. The Cebuano businessman, who is known in the Queen City as a boxing manager who was, as he himself admitted, also involved in the illegal numbers game “masiao” (a thing of the past, he says), is widely-regarded as one of the closest advisers of the Pacman.
Wakee sounded morose that morning as he recounted that he was “blind” to what transpired the evening of his arrival in California with Manny Pacquiao. He said he was surprised to see Freddie Roach at the airport, as the celebrated trainer didn’t usually come out to meet Pacquiao. But he paid it no mind, not knowing that Roach actually had Oscar de la Hoya with him and that he was arranging a clandestine meeting with Manny that same night.
Manny actually went with Wakee and the entire party to a Denny’s fastfood outlet, ostensibly to have a late dinner, but mysteriously disappeared and was later on found out to have met with De la Hoya in a Morton’s Steak House and consequently signed a 7-fight deal with ODLH.
Salud, who left the States after only a couple of days there, actually found out about the Golden Boy deal when he arrived Manila to the news that Manny had signed up that same night that they arrived in Los Angeles. When I talked to him that morning, he seemed confused and hurt, but said he could not do anything about it, but just regretted that Manny chose not to give the other contending parties (specifically Bob Arum of Top Rank) a chance to present their own offer, which may have been more attractive. Salud felt they could have played their cards better.
And now l’affaire Jaca comes to the fore. Jimrex Jaca, who first came to national attention when he fought in the undercard of Morales-Pacquiao II, was supposed to fight Juan Manuel Marquez (remember him, the guy Manny knocked down 3 times in the 1st round only to salvage a draw?) last October 21. Visa problems allegedly prevented Jaca from getting to the fight in time, and according to Salud, his impression was that the fight was cancelled.
Salud says, as a manager, he had to look for a fight for his boxer and found a golden opportunity in the Pacquiao fight this Nov. 18 as one of the curtain-raisers. The fight is promoted by Arum of Top Rank.
A problem cropped up when GBP announced that the Marquez-Jaca fight was on for Nov. 25 in Texas. Salud came out with a statement that Jaca could not fight in Texas as he had already committed him to the Nov. 18 card and that Top Rank even had to scrap a fight just to accommodate him.
Salud then bought plane tickets for Jaca to fly out Nov. 3 for Los Angeles and was stupefied when he learned that Jaca had left without picking up his ticket from his office. He says it was obvious that GBP had undercut him. He is asking the Games and Amusements Board to look into this, since his contract with the boxer is live until 2009.
I contacted Sammy Gello-Ani, who is Golden Boy’s representative here, but he disclaims any involvement in Jaca’s hush-hush departure, saying all he did was inform Jaca’s handlers of the upcoming fight, and that when he talked to them, they already knew about it. He presumes they had already talked to GBP directly. Whatever Jaca did, was Jaca’s decision and his alone, according to Gello-Ani (it might have also helped that GBP is paying him ,000 to fight Marquez while the Nov. 18 card would have paid only 00).
Besides, he says, Jaca’s P-1 working visa specified that his employer in the States would be GBP. So he could not have used it to fight under Top Rank, anyway.
And what of the contract between Jaca and Salud? Gello-Ani says he knows nothing about it, and that it is up to Salud and Jaca to settle things between themselves. Asked how Jaca could have signed a reported three-fight deal with De la Hoya, Gello-Ani says Jaca would be in trouble if Salud is indeed his registered manager in the States. In other words, the Salud contract is not worth the paper it was printed on, if Salud is not his registered manager in the U.S.
And so we find it hard not to draw a parallelism with Julius Caesar’s situation when he found out that his friend had turned against him when his ambition to rule as a monarch was discovered and his enemies hatched an assassination plot which involved his closest friend, Brutus.
That gave birth to what is considered the three most famous words in literature, uttered by Caesar to his friend: “Et tu, Brute”? (You too, Brutus?)
