By Reni M. Valenzuela
Toughness of mind and skill in facing toughest oppositions are equal to gallantry. It is the virtue most supreme and compatible to boxing as a combat sport. Thus beyond ring performances, gallantry should be topmost as criteria in choosing the Fighter (not “Fighter”) of the Year award.
How can a boxer who avoids toughest oppositions ever be thought of being “so good” to be considered Fighter of the Year for 2013 or any year? How can he be awarded as the best from the year he started shying away from solidly genuine challenges up to the year he refuses to fight a fellow boxer that the entire world has been longing to see him fight, for as long as the fight makes sense and matters?
Ignominious.
Actors are for the big screen. They are not fighters. The Oscars or the Golden Globe should be the bodies (not boxing “experts” and associations) to decide who among Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks, Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn is the best? Funny, boxing is a combat sport, not acting. The sport should stick to its own peculiar requirements in choosing the best, unless it decides to create a trophy or belt for Best Actor.
Money May should instead be a top contender in the Department of Commerce yearly awards by nullifying sanity about boxing being a sport without butting an eyelash when he swore that everything boils down to business.
Well if that’s the case, why does he refuse engaging in a fight with the “lesser” foe Pacquiao when it’s the matchup that makes the most sense for him if it happens, business wise; and the worst sense if it happens not.
Wherefore it is as bright as the noonday sun that every Mayweather argument to avoid Pacquiao always boils down to alibi and ducking act.
Go ahead, flatter god Floyd to no end for he would just be too happy being venerated by devotees like you and the few remnants of Baal worshipers who are at his beck and call before the “great” Money altar. You need not look for the one lost sheep. Just find your brain underneath your scalp and the ninety nine others in the fold would be exceedingly rejoicing along with those who have guts to face the mirror.
“King” Floyd boasts of his PPV numbers in comparison with that of Pacquiao versus Brandon Rios in Macau. But let him stage his future fight in the same place with any of his cherry picked guys and I foresee him to be extremely “lucky” gaining 100,000 pay-per-view buys as a result. However, I don’t think Mayweather and his team are too damn “astute” as Bob Arum to do that.
It’s about time to stop looking forward to the “Pacquiao vs. Mayweather” as being the fight “after another fight” because alibis are meant to be forever. Such vicious assumption has been the cycle and false-hope-warp the sport has gotten entangled in. And it’s the cause why we have reached this far with the fight still being unable to come to fruition.
The people are running out of patience. And they’re getting exasperated.
To one and all but the boar or boars: Merry Christmas!
renimvalenzuela@yahoo.com
