The grand titillation of Olympic boxing

IT’S OFFICIAL. The International Boxing Association (Aiba) decided Wednesday to allow professional fighters like Sen. Manny Pacquiao in the Summer Olympics if they qualify, beginning with the Games in Rio de Janeiro this August.

Boxing’s governing body, through its member-countries, overwhelmingly amended a rule that permits national federations to “determine what boxers [including pros] may represent them in all Aiba competitions,” reports Ed Picson by text from Lausanne, Switzerland, where a special congress was held on the issue.

Picson, the executive director of the Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines (Abap) cast the country’s ballot to let pros into the Olympic ring. The vote was 84 yesses, 0 nos and 4 abstentions.

With the forceful action, boxing, salivating for lucrative TV and corporate sponsorship, becomes the last amateur holdout of the major Olympic sports to succumb to the Games’ crash commercialism that started in 1992. That’s when pro athletes, led by USA Basketball’s Dream Team, first “dominated the Olympics and ensured its commercial success,” opined an Inquirer editorial.

Since it’s too late for most pros to compete in qualifying tournaments for the Rio Games, we would not likely see them in action in Brazil this year.

Top pros, led by former heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, are said to want to become Olympians, although they would likely sit it out this year and wait to lift the ring attractions of the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020.

Incidentally, Klitschko won an Olympic gold for Ukraine in the 1996 Atlanta Games, the last time the Philippines won an Olympic medal, a boxing silver courtesy of light flyweight Mansueto Velasco.

Pacquiao, too, was keen on Rio, his personal pondering to box or not for flag and country awaited by the sports universe. But he elected last week to concentrate on his career as senator.

Aquiles Zonio, Pacquiao’s incoming Senate press officer, revealed that it was Aiba president Wu Ching-kuo who extended a personal invite to the Pacman to fight in Rio when they met at the Aiba world championships in Doha, Qatar, in October last year.

Zonio said since Wu’s offer fell on Pacman’s lap suddenly, his boss informed the Abap but did not run with it immediately amid looming business that would include Manny’s third fight with Timothy Bradley Jr. and his Senate run that were both successful.

Pacquiao’s grand titillation of Olympic boxing continued before the senator-elect was given until May 27 to decide.

That was the last day for Abap to submit entries, including Pacman—had he said yes to the Final Qualifying Olympic tournament for boxing in Baku, Azerbaijan, later this month.

Picson emphasized that Abap’s role, while Pacquiao made up his mind, was “as a conduit between Aiba and Manny.”

“There was no pressure at all from us for Pacquiao to accept or decline,” Picson explained. “I just relayed messages to and fro. We have always been focused on preparing our own boxers for the event (Olympics). If Manny came on board, we would have endorsed and welcomed him.”

Meanwhile, Pacquiao and Klitschko’s favorable views of pros in the Olympics make them orphans in the boxing landscape, says promoter Bob Arum.

Boxing’s best barker said it’s not only dangerous to let pros into the same ring as amateurs.
It is also utterly stupid.