Eumir Marcial’s lookouts

There may be only minor landmines in the way of Eumir Marcial should he ultimately decide to turn pro within the next couple of months. Late last week, Association of Boxing Alliances of the Philippines (ABAP) president Ricky Vargas issued a statement to quell the questions about the 2015, 2017 and 2019 SEA Games champion’s chances of turning pro before the postponed Tokyo Olympics.  Vargas said that the 24-year-old welterweight agreed to postpone any decisions until after the two of them have had a face-to-face discussion about his options. Sen. Manny Pacquiao is said to have prevailed upon his fellow Mindanao native to stay an amateur and prioritize his commitment to winning the country’s first-ever Olympic gold medal. 

The Philippines has come close to winning an Olympic gold medal a handful of times, and save for Hidilyn Diaz’s silver in weightlifting at the last Olympic Games and two other occasions, they come from boxing. Arianne Cerdeña (bowling) and Willy Wang (wushu) have each won Olympic gold, but they did not count in the medal tally. Anthony Villanueva (1964) and Onyok Velasco (1996) lost controversial gold medal matches, and had to settle for silvers. 

First of all, the International Olympic Committee has banned AIBA for a whole laundry list of offenses which are worth an entirely separate column. If the scenario were business as usual, then there would be no problem. AIBA has been trying to co-opt professional boxing’s popularity to shore up its own flagging credibility for the last few years. 

Now that the IOC is directly running the boxing competition, the question is if they will still follow all of AIBA’s policies or not. Since tennis and basketball started allowing their professionals to compete in the Olympics in the late 1980’s, few sports have followed. The advantage of tennis is that there are no differences between professional and amateur rules. In basketball, pro rules are more challenging. There’s a shorter shot clock, longer playing minutes, a more distant three-point line. So going back to amateur play is essentially simpler. 

For boxing, the rules have been substantially different. Pros intend to knock out opponents; amateurs win with style points. That’s why Mike Tyson was rejected from the US Olympic team despite being the best heavyweight available, because his style was deemed too professional, and he was knocking everyone out. AIBA has been trying to mitigate that gap by modifying amateur rules. They’ve taken away protective headgear (which obscured boxers’ identities) and the white point-scoring tips of the gloves. They’ve even allowed boxers with several pro bouts to still fight as amateurs. But the biggest difference is the one that cannot be reconciled: the weigh-in. Pros are only weighed once, the day before the fight. Amateurs are weighed every day of a tournament until they lose.

This means that pro boxers who decide to try for an Olympic berth will have to compete in a higher division simply to make weight, and even then, there’s a risk. In pro boxing, if a boxer is disqualified for being overweight, he is made to fight with thicker gloves because he is technically bigger. Pro boxers gain substantial weight (often more than 10 pounds) when they binge eat after their lone weigh-in). In an amateur competition, they may have to fight two divisions higher. So far, only three pros have tried their luck in the Olympics, and all suffered defeat early on. None made it past the round of 16. Luckily for Marcial, the IOC task force in charge of boxing the other day announced that it will maintain AIBA’s policy to let pros fight in the Games.

After Marcial already qualified for the Olympics in March, he was preparing for Tokyo. But since COVID-19 forced the postponement of the Olympics to July 2021, he basically has nothing to do for 15 months. In fact, he is one of a few athletes still being fully supported by the Philippine Sports Commission, if looming budgetary constraints do not affect that, as well. Not actively competing takes away an athlete’s edge. Pro boxers normally take a tune-up or activity fight after a long layoff. 

Furthermore, the World Boxing Council maintains a firm stand against its boxers competing in the Olympics. In January, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman reiterated in a statement that “The World Boxing Council (WBC) has adamantly opposed this measure since 2013, when AIBA modified the regulation and took this step that is absolutely and totally rejected by the majority of the members of the boxing community worldwide.”

That means that if Marcial turns pro while still planning to compete in Tokyo, he will face a two-year ban from the most profitable professional boxing body. Then again, if he ends up signing with Pacquiao’s MP Promotions, he may  fight in the World Boxing Organization (WBO) for the time being. Should he turn pro after quarantine, he will have fought at least twice by the time the Olympics come around. A lot of things can still happen. Ultimately, the Philippine boxing community hopes he stays an amateur, makes one final push for an Olympic gold and avoids any complications. But he will do what he feels is best for him.