INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines ? Unlike a new book, the basketball career of Wynne Arboleda needs no foreword.

One thumping dribble down the floor and you know he was born to be a basketball warrior.

Hefty, tense and thick around the chest, he resembles a shotgun whose muzzle had been sawed off.

He is, in short, cut out to be an enforcer, belonging to that rare breed of rugged bangers usually assigned to carry out crucial play-stopping assignments.

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Like his predecessors in local basketball, Arboleda is above all a no-nonsense floor leader. Decisive plays can either start or end with him.

He?s of the gutsy sort wily coaches will never hesitate to enlist.

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How Arboleda practically put an abrupt end to his colorful career is, of course, another story.

It belongs to a chapter divorced from that fond one about the legendary enforcers in Philippine basketball.

You know, the likes of Carlos Badion, Rogelio Melencio and Robert Jaworski, to name only three who blazed the rugged trail in international competitions riding on their skills, guts and foxiness, not necessarily in that order.

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Members of this banging band are also always ready to take as much as they give.

Naturally, this terrible trio were given cute sobriquets: Badion was Boom Boom and also Bad Boy; Melencio was Tembong and Kabayo; Jaworski was Big J and many more.

Who knows? Arboleda may have started to slowly creep into the exclusive turf of this rare and rugged band?until he went berserk and attacked a noisy spectator at the special ringside section last week.

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?Si Arboleda na lang ang ilaban natin kay Cotto (Just send Arboleda to fight Miguel Cotto),? proposed burly Jun de Jesus while polishing his big vehicle on the roadside yesterday.

A former college banger when the Jose Rizal University was still called JRC in the NCAA, De Jesus sounded firm with his suggestion.

Of course, the former Bomber was also half-kidding, but it did help hide the fact that Arboleda has assumed a notoriety that is a godless world away from the turf Badion-Melencio-Jaworski & Co. had thrived in.

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While Jaworski and his two immediate predecessors have become synonymous to guts and foxiness in basketball, Arboleda is left to assume a shameful tag not too different from that of a rapist.

Wrote Tommy Manotoc, premier golfer and legendary PBA coach: ?In the middle of the second quarter ? Arboleda decided to change careers from pro cager to UFC fighter. He committed four fouls, two of them flagrant, and then attacked a fan?all in, officially, three minutes of playing time.?

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The PBA was caught flatfooted.

Manotoc next wondered if Arboleda, later described as an angel off the playing court, acted on his own after he turned from enforcer to executioner inside the court.

Did Arboleda take orders?

?If the PBA technical committee was competent, it would?ve readily put a stop to the shenanigans,? Manotoc said.

Anyway, to demonstrate its competence, the PBA next threatened major offenders with a lifetime ban?equal to a cocked gun?in order to restore sanity in the pro league.

They also call this a happy ending.