INQUIRER Sports

THE BRAIN SURGERY which promising Filipino bantamweight Z “The Dream” Gorres underwent at a Nevada hospital last Saturday underscored once more the perils of professional boxing.

Although the 27-year-old Gorres has recovered from the operation to remove the blood clot from his brain, doctors said the ill-starred Filipino boxer would need at least from five to six months of therapy before he could regain normal use of all his vital organs.

Gorres now lies helpless in bed at the University Medical Center in Las Vegas where he was rushed after collapsing minutes after he was declared winner via a 10-round unanimous decision over Luis Melendez of Colombia at the Mandalay Bay’s House of Blues.

His manager, Michael Aldeguer of Cebu’s ALA Promotions, told Gorres’ wife, Datches, not to worry. “Gorres is alive and well. His vital organs are all stable and normal.”

“All in all, it’s a pretty good news,” said Keith Kizer of the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

Gorres’ wife recalled that her husband had planned to hold a party on the occasion of her 26th birthday on Dec. 3. He also planned to buy a computer set for their seven-year-old son.

“He is a very religious man,” Datches revealed in an interview with Jhunnex Napallacan of Inquirer Visayas at her home in Barangay Ibabao, Mandaue City.

Before and after every fight, Datches said Gorres would visit the Virgin of Lindogon in Simala, Sibonga town and the Señor Santo Niño in Basilica del Santo Niño church in Cebu City.

Before the incident, Gorres has a fight record of 31 wins, 2 losses and 2 draws, with 17 knockouts.

Professional boxing used to be my favorite sport, but I decided to walk away from it.

After years of covering fights, acting as local and international boxing judge and serving as assistant anchor to the great sportscaster Joe Cantada on GMA-7, I decided to break my romance with pro boxing on moral and medical grounds.

I felt I’ve had enough of shrewd and dishonest promoters, the increasing number of ring deaths and of boxers who have been maimed for life or reduced to stuttering derelicts like the great heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, a victim of Parkinson’s disease.

Modesty aside, I was the only sports journalist who covered the successful campaign way back in the mid-60s of the late Games and Amusements Board chair Justiniano Montano Jr. for the presidency of the World Boxing Council.

As a matter of fact, another Filipino, lawyer Rudy Salud, drafted the WBC constitution and by-laws.

While the Gorres incident once again underscored the brutality of pro boxing, it would be futile to abolish the sport because it is the only way out of poverty for many aspiring fighters.

Just to illustrate. The man of the moment, Manny Pacquiao, had humble beginnings. But he worked hard and sacrificed more than any other Filipino boxer to attain unprecedented success. Now the holder of seven world titles in seven different weight divisions, Pacquiao has earned enough money to fill his pockets for several lifetimes, a record feat few boxers will ever accomplish.

As a result, some quarters have pleaded to Pacman to hang up his gloves. “Quit while you are still ahead,” they said. Even his fabled American coach, Freddie Roach, has advised Pacquiao to fight only one or two more times and then retire.

“He has nothing more to prove,” Roach said.