Ring editor to honor Pacquiao

Ring Magazine editor Nigel Collins is arriving tonight to personally strap the so-called Bible of Boxing’s world featherweight championship belt around Manny Pacquiao’s waist.

Collins is handcarrying the colorful belt–a throwback to the gartered, red-white-and blue version of the bareknuckle era.

I haven’t seen what Pacquiao’s belt looks like but I imagine it will be in the tradition of the Ring’s belts. I expect photographs of Pacquiao to flank a gold plate recognizing the Filipino as the world featherweight champion, a gold American eagle with its wings apart over two miniature US flags on top of the plate, a yellow trim lining both sides of the belt, a gold plate detailing his win over Marco Antonio Barrera and another gold plate noting his fight record.

No doubt, the Ring belt is in a class of its own. None of the title belts of the three most popular governing bodies–World Boxing Council (WBC), World Boxing Association (WBA) and International Boxing Federation (IBF)–comes close to its handsome look.

No wonder Collins is handcarrying the belt. I don’t know how much it cost to make the belt but I understand, the sponsors who made Collins’ trip here possible are footing the bill for all his expenses. The belt doesn’t come cheap. I figure the budget for the visit includes a tidy sum to cover the cost of the belt.

According to the Ring’s local correspondent Ted Lerner who’s coordinating Collins’ trip, the belt will be awarded to Pacquiao in President Arroyo’s presence at Malacanang tentatively at 2 p.m. on Tuesday.

Only champions recognized by the Ring are given the prestigious belt. The publication is proud of its independence and lists champions regardless of how they’re ranked by the WBC and the other alphabet soup bodies.

In each issue of the Ring are listed its world champions like Pacquiao, junior welterweight Kostya Tszyu, middleweight Bernard Hopkins, lightheavyweight Roy Jones and lightweight Floyd Mayweather. If the Ring believes that no fighter is worthy of being the champion of his division, then it declares the throne vacant. In its April 2004 issue, seven of 17 championships were vacant. That’s how choosy the Ring is.

Collins is only the second Ring editor to visit the country. The first was its founder Nat Fleischer who came in the 1950s during an Asia tour and paid a courtesy call on President Magsaysay at Malacañang.

The sixth Ring editor, Collins is based in Philadelphia where the magazine is published and is on his second tour of duty at the helm of the monthly magazine.

While in Manila, Collins will visit the tombs of and pay his respects to former world champions Pancho Villa and Flash Elorde.

"I’ve been looking into the history of Filipino boxing and I’m surprised at how many great Filipino fighters have come to the US," said Collins. "Villa was the first world champion from the Philippines. He was an exciting fighter who drew big crowds in the US. He’s one of those iconic boxing figures from the golden era of the sport."

On Pacquiao, Collins said, "he’s excited the hardcore boxing fans in the US because of his hardcore style, he’s fearless and he’s ready to take on all the top fighters."

The Ring was founded in 1922 by Fleischer. Its offices used to be in New York City. Collins was the Ring editor from 1985 to 1989, succeeding Fleischer, Nat Loubet, Bert Randolph Sugar and Randy Gordon. SteveFarhood took over from Collins who returned to the post in 1997.

I remember visiting the Ring office on 130 West 37th street in New York City in 1984. When I dropped in, the editor (Gordon) was in the middle of interviewing former world lightweight champion Ray (Boom Boom) Mancini.

Gordon took me around the office. He showed me how the Ring’s brand-new microcomputers worked and introduced me to his staff. I met the publication’s newly-appointed controller, a Filipino named Castillo. He declined to disclose much of his background only that he used to work in a bank in Bacolod. I suspect he was in the US on a tourist visa.

Gordon became the editor in 1983 after former New York Knicks star Dave DeBusschere, Nick Kladis and Jim Bukata–representing the owners–fired Sugar for mismanagement of finances and prejudiced editorials.

The Filipino controller was formerly an accountant in the organization but was promoted after unearthing an anomaly traced to his predecessor Vince Shomo who embezzled at least $200,000 from the company’s coffers. There was another Filipino in Gordon’s backroom staff.

"I wouldn’t know what to do without my Filipino staff," said Gordon.

A report in the boxing newsletter Flash, dated Sept. 17, 1984, said: "The full extent of Vince’s thefts are only now coming to light yet thankfully when the top of the Shomo embezzlement iceberg was first discovered by the new Filipino controller, Ring Magazine was able to rush to its bank and put a hold on an unknown laundering account Vince had secretly opened which contained $40,000 of cash he is suspected of stealing."

A few years later, I checked if the Filipinos were still employed by the Ring. I found out they’d left with no forwarding addresses.

The Ring nearly closed shop in the late 1980s but has been resuscitated by its new owners, London Publishing Co., a division of the Kappa Group. London is the world’s largest publisher of boxing magazines with an annual circulation of over four million copies.

Collins will meet the press at a 10 a.m. conference hosted by Mayor Lito Atienza at the Manila Hotel on Monday. The next morning, he will attend the Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA) Forum at the Manila Pavilion Hotel.

If Collins is influential in boxing circles, perhaps he can explain to Filipino fight fans why since the institutionalization of the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, New York, in 1990, former middleweight champion Ceferino Garcia and the late promoter Lope Sarreal, Sr. continue to be ignored as honorees. Villa and Elorde are the only Filipinos enshrined in the Hall of Fame.

Garcia won the world middleweight title from Fred Apostoli in 1939 and was the first man to floor Barney Ross. Both Apostoli and Ross are Hall of Famers. Sarreal introduced big-time boxing in Asia and hobnobbed with the likes of Fleischer, promoter George Parnassus and Hawaiian impresario Sad

Sam Ichinose–who are all Hall of Famers. Surely, Sarreal must be recognized if only for his pioneering efforts in opening up the Asian market for pro boxing.