MANNY Pacquiao didn’t lose to Timothy Bradley. That much is clear, no matter what Bradley says. Like a recently impeached midnight appointee, Bradley has to rationalize wearing his corona. But no one believes him. And until he fights Pacquiao again, he’ll always sense that folks are raising their eyebrows at him whenever he talks about being The Champ.
That’s a heavy price to pay for a title. Ask the one who recently got impeached.
Meanwhile, Pacquiao has comported himself like a true champion. No trash talk. No woulda-shoulda-coulda post-fight recriminations. Utmost dignity. That makes him a double-winner.
But there were obvious winners and losers in that fight. For starters, The Mob won bigtime. If you don’t think The Mob had something to do with the results of that highway robbery, you don’t know Las Vegas.
Betting on a 5-to-1 underdog can deliver tons of money, if you’re a high stakes gambler. Think of how much The Mob made, considering that their bets must have been in the millions.
A guest at our house who had just been to Las Vegas a few days earlier, said that he had placed a bet on the Celtics in game 5 of the NBA eastern conference finals between Boston and Miami. Boston, which was tagged an underdog by Las Vegas odds-makers, won. Our guest scooped up $21,000 on a bet of $6,000 (by the way, Miami Heat won the 7th and final game).
While Bob Arum appears genuinely upset over the outcome of the fight and the raging controversy that it has created, he’s actually a clear winner, too. Without needing to wait for a Pacquiao-Mayweather match, which would be the next logical boxoffice hit for him, he can look forward to a big payday with a Pacquiao-Bradley return bout.
Las Vegas is a loser in this fight. While the Sin City will always be a first choice for big stakes prize fights, it is doubtful that a Pacquiao-Bradley rematch will be held there. The Cowboys Stadium in Texas, which staged the Pacquiao-Clottey fight, will surely be eager to make an offer. And New York’s Madison Square Garden has begun to make waves again as a boxing Mecca.
Of course, The Mob will always find a way to join the fun, wherever it may be, but that’s another story.
But the most interesting losers of all, as far as we Pinoys are concerned, were the public officials who trooped to Las Vegas to watch the fight and, conceivably, bet the meager wealth of the Republic of the Philippines on The Sure Thing.
According to my brother-in-law, Lito Uy, who is a Las Vegas resident, there were 40 honorable members of Congress who flew in from Manila for the fight.
Of course, his information is based on hearsay. Who knows? Maybe there were less or more. But what is certain is that several congressional committees would have had a quorum if committee meetings had been held at the MGM Grand. What is also certain is that their attendance at the fight was not in aid of legislation.
We have no information on the spouses and/or mistresses who accompanied the honorable solons. But there is no doubt that an opportunity to rub elbows with the glitterati, not to mention trying out the gaming tables and slot machines, would have been missed by the significant others of the members of Congress.
My brother-in-law made no mention of lesser lights, like mayors and governors. But they were also there in large numbers. Chavit Singson was there, of course. But he’s practically a member of Pacquiao’s corner.
How much did that trip cost our hapless country? We may never know. Don’t count on the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee looking into that.
The last time there was a big furor over the presence of members of Congress at a Pacquiao fight, they self-righteously claimed that they went on their own coin. That, of course, is as believable as a Bradley victory.
How much did they bet on the fight? Again, it’s doubtful that we will ever know. But we can be sure that they didn’t place nickels and dimes. Even assuming that for every $10,000 they bet, the take-home would have been a measly$2,000 (on odds of 5-to-1), that’s more than most of our poverty-stricken countrymen can hope to see in their lifetime.
Of course, some mobsters could have tipped off some of our honorable solons that the payoff was bigger on the underdog. But it’s doubtful that they would have believed that canard. Besides, you can always be assured of our congressmen’s patriotism. It would have been unpatriotic to bet against one’s kababayan and a fellow solon at that.
We understand that Bob Arum has called for the Nevada attorney general – possibly even the FBI – to conduct an investigation of the fight. He doubts that the Nevada boxing commission will do an honest job of it. More likely, a whitewash.
This should suggest something to our honorable solons. Perhaps, with the support of the rest of Congress, they can rush a resolution calling for the impeachment of the three judges who adjudicated the fight (even the one who scored it 115-113 in favor of Pacquiao).
An equally great idea would be to encourage the involvement of the small group of Fil-Ams that circulated a counter-petition in support of Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s election to the International Criminal Court. The group actually managed a respectable 500 signatures in favor of Defensor-Santiago — which, of course, pales in comparison with the 4,670 that the anti-Miriam petition generated.
At any rate, here is an excellent opportunity for the Miriam fans to call on their champion to step up to the plate – or into the ring – and do any of the following:
a) Challenge Timothy Bradley to a fight, to prove that a Pinoy can whip him – if not a congressman, a senator will.
b) Subject the three boxing judges to a cross examination on their questionable scoring, in the finest Defensor-Santiago tradition, complete with choice Tagalog cuss words like “Gago!”
c) Rationalize to the international media why she thinks Pacquiao should have been declared the winner (at least in this case, she would be in the right).
d) See to it that the very first case she handles as a judge of the International Criminal Court is the complaint that, hopefully, Bob Arum will file against the Nevada boxing commission (and, boy, should she let them have it!).
e) All of the above.
The Department of Tourism could also take advantage of the wave of sympathy that Pacquiao has gained internationally and use him to promote Philippine tourism.
He has an excellent talking point. He can boast that Filipinos are the most well-behaved sports fans in the world, reacting with dignity even when cheated – unlike the rowdy hooligans of England and the soccer fans in Argentina who would have staged a riot under similar circumstances.
Pacquiao’s slogan could be: “Watching the fights. It’s more fun in the Philippines.”
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