Jose Sulaiman: Pacquiao is Ill- Advised and Misguided on Declining Marquez Fight

Filipino boxing superstar, Manny Pacquiao, is “ill-advised and misguided” in turning down the opportunity for a mandatory title shot at WBC super featherweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez, according to WBC president Jose Sulaiman.

The respected WBC chairman revealed that the WBC Board of Governors was contemplating supporting a 50-50 split of the purses of Marquez and Pacquiao if there were no successful free negotiations and it went to a purse bid set for June 18 at the WBC headquarters in an overseas telephone conversation with Viva Sports/Manila Standard Today.

According to him, the usual 75-25 split in favor of the champion would not be followed since “nobody can deny that Pacquiao is the top super featherweight fighter of today and we all believe that they both deserve equal purses.”

Sulaiman is clearly disappointed over Pacquiao’s rejection of the mandatory challenge offer.
He said winning the WBC gold and green belt was “the dream of most fighters in the world” and it would have helped establish “who is better between Marquez and Pacquiao” following their controversial draw in 2004.

A few days ago, Pacquiao asked the WBC to name someone else as mandatory challenger in a three-paragraph letter prepared by Michael Koncz who is reportedly an adviser but is believed to be Top Rank promoter Bob Arum’s eyes and ears in Team Pacquiao.

While neither fighter can think that “he is superior to the other” Marquez holds the world championship and Pacquiao does not, the WBC chairman explained. He also added that, “while his ill-advisers might tell Manny the belt is not important the records of boxing in the future will show who is more and who is less as a boxer by the world championship records that are stated forever in history.”

Is Pacquiao Getting the Wrong Advice On Marquez?

Manny Pacquiao is ill-advised on his recent media pronouncements telling the World Boxing Council (WBC) that he is letting go of his mandatory status to WBC super-featherweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez in the opinion of boxing promoter Rex 'Wakee' Salud. The popular boxing promoter also said that Pacquiao must be getting pointers from people who do not know their boxing, and the art of the deal.

Salud said that, "telling the WBC that he is not interested in being the mandatory challenger smacks of ill-advice. I don't know who is behind this, I'm not even sure if Manny understands this situation."

He added that, "they should not have issued that letter to the WBC. That's a wrong move. They should have let the WBC pressure Marquez to defend his title instead. I know that Sulaiman understands Pacquiao's situation that he cannot accept a smaller purse in case of a purse-bidding as he is the more popular fighter." Under this scenario, a Pacquiao- Humberto Soto clash would have been more feasible because there would have been a strong chance of Marquez getting stripped of the title .


In other news, Filipino lightweight Ariel “King Kong” Omongos moved up in weight to battle WBF Asia Pacific light welterweight champion Jed Syger in a six round non-title bout in Sydney, Australia late Monday. He surprised the champion and the audience with a second round TKO win.

This is a big, morale-boosting victory for the 20 year old Omongos who had a record of only two wins against seven losses and one KO. On the other hand, it was only the second loss for Syger whose record dropped to 9-2 with 2 KO’s.

Pacquiao Declines to Fight Marquez

Richard Schaefer, the CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, expressed his surprise upon being informed that Many Pacquiao signed a three-paragraph letter to the WBC prepared by his adviser Michael Koncz. The letter informed WBC president Jose Sulaiman that Pacquiao was relinquishing his mandatoru status and the WBC was free to name someone else in his place.

The letter is a response to Sulaiman's calle for free negotiations or if it didn’t work, a purse bid on June 18. In effect, The Pacman has turned down a mandatory title shot at reigning WBC super featherweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez.

There are some speculations why Pacquiao would decline such a tempting offer. The first is that Team Pacquiao is not willing to accept the usual 75-25 percent split of the purse between the champion and challenger. However the challenger would usually ask the WBC to change the purse split and the WBC usually does it in cases where the challenger is so well known.

Since Team Pacquiao dismissed the offer without making any effort, suspicions abound that the decision to decline the offer was from Bob Arum. It is probable that Arum would want to have Pacquiao pullout since he had earlier wanted the WBC to name Humberto Soto whom he handles, as the mandatory challenger. Soto won a title eliminator against Ivan Valle several months ago. Should Soto beat Bobby Pacquiao in their June 9 clash at Madison Square Garden, he would be elevated to mandatory challenger status against Marquez.

Schaefer is now planning to sit down with Marco Antonio Barrera from whom Marquez won the title earlier this year to discuss the possibility of a rematch in view of Pacquiao’s decision not to fight Marquez. Golden Boy promotions have several other options including Jorge Barrios, Rocky Juarez, Joan Guzman or Edwin Valero should Barrera not wish to do the fight.

Pacman KO'd !!!

According to television reports on late Thursday afternoon, Custodio led by nearly 37,000 votes over Manny in General Santos.The Namfrel tally showed that Pacquiao got 50,229 votes while the second-term lawmaker took 87,138 votes.

However, Manny has still refused to accept defeat. He said that his lawyers will question the absence of Commission on Elections (Comelec) watermarks in some election returns. Manny said in a recent interview that he will accept defeat as long as "clean elections" were held.
He also recently accused the Antoninos of raising P100 million to have him killed.

WBC head Jose Sulaiman offered a comment upon hearing news about Pacquiao's impending defeat in the elections. Sulaiman was quoted as saying "Manny Pacquiao’s legendary timing is off….politically wise!" He also mentioned that Manny "doesn’t appear to be having the same dynamic impact at the ballot box, as he does in the ringed square." Sulaiman further told the www.boxingscene.com that, "Manny Pacquiao made a mistake at this particular time. He should have run for politics, after retirement from boxing."

This should wake Manny up from his hallucinations. Now that he has lost his honor and a few million pesos in the elections he can focus on boxing. After all, winning in the ring is the best way that he can regain both of them.