Last chance to win NBA prizes

Tomorrow is the deadline to submit entries for our exclusive NBA Finals contest where you can win NBA merchandise not available in local stores. Drop-off time at The Philippine Star office on R. Oca Jr. and Railroad Streets, Port Area, Manila, ends at 5 p.m.

We’re giving away three dri-fit, long-sleeved NBA All-Star Dallas 2010 shirts and 30 blue NBA All-Star Dallas 2010 on.file planners. Three lucky winners will take home a shirt and planner each while 27 others will get a planner apiece. The shirts and planners were flown in directly from the NBA Asia office in Hong Kong.

To join the contest, simply answer three questions correctly – First, who will win the NBA title this season? Second, who will be the NBA Finals MVP? And third, who will be the losing finalist?

Write your answers on a slip of paper. Include your name, address, age, occupation (if student, what year, course, school), telephone number and in 100 words or less, why you think this season’s playoffs are amazing. Additionally, you must include an actual clipping (no Xerox copies, please) of a Philippine STAR front page masthead on a one-clipping-one-entry basis. The dates of the issues where the masthead appears must be between the contest launch date of May 5, 2010, and the cut-off date of May 31, 2010.

Send in as many entries as you can. The more entries, the more chances of winning. There will be no multiple winners. Address your entries to The Philippine Star, NBA Playoffs Contest, Sports Section. For questions, call Tel. 527-6007.

We’ll announce the winners in this column at the end of the NBA Finals.

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In last Friday’s column, we mentioned that Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Vic Darchinyan are chickens of the same feather. They appear to be deathly afraid of facing their next logical opponents – who both happen to be Filipinos.

Boxing fans all over the world are eagerly awaiting Mayweather’s showdown with Manny Pacquiao to determine who’s the world’s No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter. At the same time, the outcome will cement the winner’s claim as the undisputed world welterweight champion. Top Rank chairman Bob Arum said Nov. 13 is available for an HBO slot. Mayweather is reportedly making unreasonable demands, raising speculation that he’s scared of facing the Filipino icon.

The other fight that fans want to see is the rematch between Darchinyan and Nonito Donaire Jr. The Australian of Armenian descent recently feasted on Filipino Eric Barcelona to win the IBO bantamweight crown. The expectation is he will be stripped of recognition by the WBC as superflyweight champion and the WBA as its senior or “super-duper” titlist for patronizing another governing body in a higher weight category.

Donaire, who knocked out Darchinyan with a single left hook to the jaw to wrest the IBF flyweight crown in 2007, is the WBA interim 115-pound champion. The Filipino Flash isn’t choosing opponents. He just wants to keep busy and collect championships. Darchinyan’s IBO belt is in Donaire’s sights.

Darchinyan’s promoter Gary Shaw was close to inking a deal for a rematch with Top Rank which represents Donaire but the negotiating parties couldn’t come to terms on a sharing of the international TV rights. Both fighters stand to earn a substantial amount in the much-awaited return bout so there’s really no reason to end the talks – unless Darchinyan is scared stiff of his tormentor.

Mayweather and Darchinyan should be ashamed of themselves. Their profession is fighting – not playing mind games, not trash-talking and certainly not ducking.

Former boxer and now trainer John (Iceman) Scully, writing a guest column in London’s Boxing News (May 7, 2010), said it would be a crime committed against boxing fans if the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight doesn’t happen. The same could be said about the Donaire-Darchinyan rematch.

Pacquiao and Donaire are ready to get it on but their gutless opponents seem to be avoiding them like the plague.

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Sports fans are outraged by the recent brutal assault on former world lightweight boxing champion Andy Ganigan, a Hawaiian of Filipino descent. The senseless mauling in a Waipahu parking lot left Ganigan with permanent brain damage and on a 24-hour watch for the rest of his life. Ganigan, 57, was beaten up for no apparent reason by a 21-year-old man who was drunk.

The tragedy is reminiscent of what happened to former world flyweight champion Jimmy (The Mighty Atom) Wilde of Wales. In 1965, Wilde was 73 when he was savagely mugged in a train station in Cardiff. Wilde never recovered from the assault and died in a hospital four years later. Wilde retired from the ring after losing the flyweight crown to the Philippines’ Pancho Villa on a seventh round knockout in New York in 1923.