2018 World Cup now a PH-China affair

For a moment there, it looked like television had picked up an old boxing report online.

According to the news item aired on TV two days ago, the projected Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. megafight may be staged in Abu Dhabi with an investment group from the UAE capital offering the two fighters a combined purse of $200 million.

The report sounded strangely familiar, minus the details.

As far back as I can remember, Abu Dhabi has been making offer to host a Manny Pacquiao fight and about five years ago, Pacquiao’s business manager Michael Koncz even sat down with representatives of Abu Dhabi’s royal family to discuss the matter.

However, for one reason or another, nothing has materialized.

After surfing through the Internet, I was surprised to find out that the report was fairly recent. The offer to host the fight of the century was made only this December, with former Top Rank senior vice president M. Akbar Muhammad as the chief negotiator for holding the event in Abu Dhabi.

According to boxingscene.com, Muhammad and his group are doing everything to make the megafight happen.

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The online report said that from the record $200 million purse, $110 million will go to Mayweather, whose company Mayweather Promotions will be tapped as the lead promoter of the event and future boxing events which will be held in the United Arab Emirates, whether or not Floyd Jr. will be in the card.

“The fight is envisioned sometime in the first six months of 2015,” said Muhammad. “It will serve as a tribute to former UAE president Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan on his 10th death anniversary.”

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PBA chair Pato Gregorio, who was recently in Geneva, Switzerland, to attend the Fiba meeting for the 2018 World Cup bidders, reports that it’s too early to tell what our chances are for hosting the event.

“It’s too early to tell and it won’t be easy to win the bid,” said Pato.

The last update from SBP senior adviser Moying Martelino was that out of several bidders, the list was slashed to only two: The Philippines and China.

“One thing for sure though, the SBP, through the leadership of its president, Manny V. Pangilinan, will go all out to win this bid. MVP wants to prove to the world that the Filipino can! I guess this is his gift to the Filipinos,” Pato said.

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HOOPVINE: An Ateneo alumnus said he expects Gilas head coach Tab Baldwin to be sitting behind the Blue Eagles bench when the next UAAP season opens in July, “to offer pointers to Ateneo coach Bo Perasol.” Bo said he knows nothing about this arrangement … Incidentally, with Ronnie Magsanoc being appointed head coach of Hapee Toothpaste in the D-League, will he still be in the Ateneo Blue Eagles coaching staff? … We were thinking Chinese for a pre-Christmas dinner but as fate would have it, we accidentally bumped into Gerry’s Grill owner Jerome Ngo at the third floor of the Fishers Mall in Quezon Avenue where his new Thai Restaurant, Sweet Chili is situated. Jerome said we had to try Sweet Chili, which is the favorite haunt of Ateneo volleyball coach Tai of Thailand. You also have to try the food there. It’s very good and the price is reasonable.