It ain't over yet

Victorious boxing champ Manny Pacquiao is back in Manila by this time. Pacquiao returns to the country after his controversial win by majority decision in his third match with archrival Juan Manuel Marquez in Las Vegas last week.

For winning a close fight instead of a knockout expected by most of his fans, Pacquiao got dislodged as the “No. 1 pound-for-pound” boxer of Sports Illustrated, ESPN and Yahoo! Sports. To make matters worse, Pacquiao has been demoted to No. 2 by undefeated American boxer Floyd Mayweather who moved up to the No. 1 spot.

As rightly pointed out by our sportswriter Abac Cordero, Mayweather – who is Pacquiao’s fiercest rival outside the ring – gets a free ride back on top. It just because Pacquiao’s latest bout against Marquez wasn’t impressive enough compared to their two previous fights.

It was admittedly not the best performance for Pacquiao since he assumed the No. 1 spot in the “pound-for-pound” rankings a few years back, Abac noted. But he pulled off the victory, a very close one, and for that he’s being made to pay the price, Abac added.

If it is any consolation, Abac reported that Ring Magazine, known as the “bible of boxing,” had Pacquiao hanging on to the “pound-for-pound” title even after the hotly contested match with Marquez last Oct. 13. “Perhaps the only way Pacquiao can regain the lofty status, in the eyes of the boxing experts from Sports Illustrated, ESPN and Yahoo! Sports, is if he beats Mayweather in the fight everybody wants to see. Until that happens, don’t expect Pacquiao to be back as No. 1,” Abac wrote.

The judges awarded Pacquiao a majority decision, with one draw and two winning scores that enabled him to keep his WBO welterweight crown. And for the first time perhaps in his string of boxing wins, Pacquiao got booed after he was declared winner in that match with Marquez.

Of course, the booing came from the largely Mexican audience at the MGM Grand boxing arena rooting for their own countryman. I think CNN anchor Piers Morgan gave the most credible, if not funny, rebuttal to the Mexican booing. “Just because crowd was booing doesn’t mean result was wrong. Audience booed me every week on America’s Got Talent and I was usually right,” Morgan tweeted.

It was a good thing I was also following the tweets of Morgan while I was mobile when the Pacquiao-Marquez bout was taking place. Since I could not watch the live telecast of the bout, I was monitoring the round-by-round results through Tweeter on my Samsung Galaxy Tab.

The Tweeter account of each round of the boxing match of the ABS-CBN’s ANC would give one the impression that Pacquiao was losing the match. When I finally got home in time for the start of the delayed telecast of the Pacquiao-Marquez fight, our “Pambansang Kamao” was not the underdog in the fight but, in fact, he was all over his opponent. Then how come the Tweeter accounts of the ANC of the match were totally different?

Then it dawned on me perhaps it was again because of the continuing network war between the Lopez-owned ABS-CBN and GMA-7. As the official carrying TV station of all his boxing matches, Pacquiao happens to be also a “talent” of GMA-7 that airs his TV program “Manny, Many Prizes” every Saturday.

Anyway, what could have been a lop-sided annotation by the rival network on Pacquiao’s fight with Marquez was more than offset by Piers Morgan’s tweets throughout the 12-round match. Here are some of excerpts of his tweets:

“I think @MannyPacquiao may need a KO punch now to win. It’s that close.”

“I think @MannyPacquiao won that by a single point. Amazing fight. Kudos to both men.”

“WINNER (as I was saying): @MannyPacquiao - right decision.”

In an obvious campaign to help remove doubt on Pacquiao’s win over Marquez, his mother network has lately come out with replays of his fight to convince the split public opinion on his latest victory. GMA-7 showed footages of Marquez stepping on Pacquiao’s foot in at least six instances during their 12-round match.

In a ringside interview with him by boxing anchor Mario Lopez right after his match with Marquez, Pacquiao said his immediate plan is “to go back to work in his office.” At least, the 32-year-old boxer-congressman is still very much aware of the greater responsibilities he has to face after his prizefight event.

Because of his main profession as a boxer, Pacquiao’s other job as congressman from Sarangani has to take a back seat whenever he has to prepare for his fight. This will be the second time he fought a boxing match as incumbent Congressman. His first one was with Shane Mosley in May this year.

Despite this, I don’t think Pacquiao would have the distinction of being No. 1 in absences at the House of Representatives. Without any doubt, it would be former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who will likely top it.

Aside from undergoing three surgeries alone this year, Congresswoman Arroyo would run out of allowable official leave of absence from the 15th Congress, especially now she has been placed under “hospital arrest” at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Global City in Taguig since Friday.

But as far the Arroyo lawyers are concerned, their fight in the legal arena is not yet over even after their principal client has been formally charged now with a non-bailable offense of electoral sabotage before the Pasay City Regional Trial Court (RTC). It finally enabled Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Leila de Lima to have valid legal grounds to prevent Mrs. Arroyo from leaving for abroad.

De Lima lost also to a majority decision at the Supreme Court (SC) which voted last Tuesday 8-5 to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the DOJ travel ban on Mrs. Arroyo and her husband, former first gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo. The DOJ Secretary refused to comply with the TRO even after the SC reaffirmed it during their emergency en banc session last Friday. But De Lima immediately carried out later that day a lower court order based on a case co-filed by DOJ.

Arroyo lawyers announced over the weekend they would elevate and question the lower court’s arrest of the former President before the High Court anew.

It ain’t over till the fat lady sings. So until the next round, as one popular expression among boxing fans puts it: “Di pa tapos ang boksing!”