Pacquiao-Mayweather talks will be tricky

JOGJAKARTA, Indonesia – The Manny Pacquiao fever continues to engulf Southeast Asia including Singapore, which is not known to particularly love boxing, and this huge nation of Indonesia.

On my way to this university town of Jogjakarta, we went through Singapore and got a hold of the island city-state’s largest newspaper, The Straits Times. The Times devoted two whole pages of Saturday’s issue to the controversial France-Ireland World Cup playoff match won by France on a handball by French team captain and World Cup veteran Thierry Henry. Competing with the football controversy are one feature article on how Pacquiao “brought joy to a doleful state” and Pacquiao coming back to a hero’s welcome and expressing interest in fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr.

 Henry himself has asked for a replay after video footages of the action clearly showed a handball violation (two violations, as a matter of fact) paving the way to a 2-1 French victory over the Irish but sparking outrage in the world of football. 

The Times Rojit Brijnath (Sporting Life) says the “handball will be explained away as a refereeing oversight, not as player dishonesty”.”Admittedly”, Brijnath says, “Henry’s job is not to police the game but to play it, but he cannot disregard his duty to the game.”

Brijnath refers to the days when there were no challenges in tennis and there was therefore no chance to correct the umpire’s and linesmen’s errors. In the French Open of 1982, Mats Wilander of Sweden won his semifinal when Jose Luis Clerc’s final shot was called out. The umpire announced the result and left his chair but Wilander was unconvinced his rival’s shot was errant. He asked the umpire to sit down and for the point to be replayed saying, “I can’t win like this.”

The FIFA, the governing body of football, has rejected calls for a game replay and has even ignored suggestions of using video replays to reverse calls and non-calls of game officials, as is done in tennis. Scottish Football Association chief Gordon Smith believes, according to wire agencies AFP and AP, a tennis-style review system, whereby each team are given two challenges per match, can work. Instead FIFA is testing the placement of two match officials behind the goals in the Europa League, thus rejecting technology which can solve many of such similar problems.

On Pacquiao, the Times senior writer, Bruce Gale, says that “nobody likes to be a party pooper...but a more dispassionate look at the way both they and their political leadership reacted (to Pacquiao’s record-breaking seventh world boxing title) reveals a deep national malaise. A second-hand book seller in Manila put it well: “Manny carries the pride of the entire Filipino nation. He is our hero, the only one we have, and we are desperate for heroes right now.”

With all due respect to Gale and the unidentified book seller, there are indeed many other heroes in our midst. Ask those who were saved from certain death by low-profile people during typhoon Ondoy and other tragedies. Ask those who received help from people who donated the relief goods (which were packed by hero-volunteers).

Pacquiao is no doubt a hero, as even the front desk staff of Jogjakarta Plaza Hotel acknowledge. They know him (and singer Christian Bautista) as a talented and courageous Filipino, like their own idol, Chris John.

Now that Pacquiao is the 147-pound WBO welterweight king, we may have to go through some tricky and awkward negotiations with the Mayweather camp. Boxing pundit Cesar Medina points out that it would be “unusual” for Pacquiao to ask or demand that Mayweather go down to a catchweight of 144 pounds or any weight below 147 pounds in a title fight where Pacqiao is the defending champion of the 147-pound division.

Mayweather can always say the maximum in the welterweights division is 147. He can say, “You (Pacquiao) are king of the welterweights. Why are you asking for a handicap by my going down to a catchweight of 144 pounds which is not the welterweight limit?”

This kind of argument, a valid one, could very well be used by Mayweather if one recalls the recent statements of Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum: “Mayweather is terrified of losing that zero (number of defeats in his record). He (Mayweather) is so tied up with the fact that nobody has beaten him.” This fear may however be assuaged by 30 million mega-buck reasons and the fight may still go through.

If Mayweather, however, insists on the 147-pound limit and the two boxing greats meet at 147 pounds, this is the first time Pacquiao will meet a 147-pounder with Mayweather’s talent and skill.