Earning millions, getting medals

I don’t know how many had anticipated for the “fight” last Sunday but seeing the way it turned out, Jerry Tundag’s column on this paper the following day said it all.  After the rip-off fight with Manny Pacquiao, the spectacle was another farce, targeting the gullible who stupidly believed that the match would be exciting.

In all fairness to Floyd Mayweather, Jr. (who definitely had slowed down from running) and Connor McGregor, both are exceptional in their chosen combat sports but if boxing rules are used for an MMA fighter or the other way around for a boxer, it won’t take a MENSA-brained individual to know who will prevail.

Had Floyd not waited for the 10th round, McGregor would be fluffier than Mary Jane’s ensaimada by the time the ref stopped the fight.  On the flipside using MMA rules, Connor would have made shakoy out of Floyd before the second round ended.  Boxing is for boxers, MMA is for mixed martial artists. 

Both earned insane amounts of money, which was the main reason for this fight anomaly anyway.  Disclosed prize purse was $100million for Floyd, the same amount he got with the PacMan fight.   McGregor received $30million, ten times more than his last highest paycheck when he fought Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205.  Including PPV buys and live gate receipts, Floyd and McGregor received estimated additional amounts of $100million and $70million respectively.

What to do with that kind of money?  Social media showed Floyd’s people hauling in a cartload of money and later in a dimly lit room, he was shown maniacally laughing, throwing money like confetti surrounded by gyrating and grinding barely naked women practically begging to be copulated.

He marketed himself well, earned his millions and Floyd will not fight again, no matter the invitingly sweet pre-fight tweet from PacMan and will retire with a perfect 50-0 record.  McGregor will now demand a bigger payday and become MMA’s major draw.  Both won but the biggest winner of all is the IRS and ever since revenue collection was invented, had never tasted defeat.

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The country’s expedition to the 29th SEA Games at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia had ended bringing home a total of 121 medals (24 golds, 33 silvers, 64 bronzes).  Delegation head Cynthia Carreon predicted a haul of 50 gold medals.  So whatever happened to the missing 26?  Had the gold-winning basketball and ice hockey teams credited with per team-member medals, the forecast would have been exceeded.

Since time immemorial, predictions as to how many medals we will be bringing home after international competitions had been the norm, with the same disastrous results.  Can we not just concentrate on the training and uplift of our athletes and facilities?  Let’s dump politicking in sports and leave the fortune telling to peculiar prophets.

As to the gold medal winners, just exactly how many of them trained in Manila under POC appointed trainers and coaches?  Athletics gave us the most number of golds at 5.  With PATAFA making pataka, Mary Joy Tabal trained on her own and produced the country’s first gold medal in this year’s SEAG.  Eric Shawn Cray and Trent Anthony Beram are foreign based and naturally trained overseas.  And it won’t be a surprise if PATAFA takes credit for their success.

Light-heavyweight boxer John Marvin trained abroad and so did the rest of our boxers.  Judo medallists Kiyomi Watanabe and Mariya Takahashi are Japan based.  Probably a good number of the rest of our medallists trained overseas.  This is not to put down the capabilities of our athletes, trainers and coaches.  We have the material and ability but it is the convoluted and corrupted mind of the aging power that lead the country’s sports programs that is annoying than a migraine, humiliating than crapping on your pants in a crowded elevator.

All of our almost 500 athletes dreamed and wanted to win at Kuala Lumpur yet we fell to better trained and well supported national teams.  We settled, again, at the bottom half of the 11-nation field, finishing sixth behind Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and Indonesia.  Our 24 gold medals was 5 short of the 29 we had two years ago at Vietnam.  If it is of any consolation, we finished ahead of the rest of the tail enders. 

Our top athletes had become cannon fodder for the region’s best yet we continue to participate, predict medals and get routinely embarrassed.  Unless we leapfrog over the region’s top five, the Asian Games and the Olympics is but a mere fantasy.

What ails Philippine sports?  It is one senile emperor whose butt had grown barnacles on the POC seat for more than ten years that dismal results don’t bother him anymore.  Just like his waning years on this planet, he probably plans on bringing the country’s sports program to extinction.  Step down already sir, now na, and maybe the PSC might be lenient on the p27million unliquidated funds.  Not only resources are being wasted but real and natural talents, both home-grown and mixed-breed. 

Millions of taxpayers’ money had been spent on futile international sporting campaigns.  It is time to change the scenery, stop the losing and prophecy and overhaul the system.  Only then can we get the medals we had been dreaming of for a long time.