Bob Arum on Congress

I am not much of a fan of boxing promoter Bob Arum, but I am a Manny Pacquiao fanatic.
So last Sunday during the Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey encounter, when the world’s best boxer made short work of the Accra, Ghana native and put him on the road towards a possible clash with Floyd Mayweather, a coward masquerading as a trash-talker fighter, I again felt a clash of emotion, as I always do everytime the Pacman has a fight.

The reason was that I had to bear the presence of Arum on the television screen even as I delighted seeing Manny. I mean, wherever Pacquiao goes, so does Arum. I hate Arum and I love Pacquiao, hence the clash of emotion.

Arum may be a boxer’s dream promoter, but he is to me a consummate wheeler-dealer. The man is famous. He makes impossible boxing matches possible. He is moneyed. He is influential and intimidating, just like Don King of another era, but he is to me a sucker. He feeds on raw dreams of boxers wanting to earn a living with only their ferocious appetite for a fight as capital.

But last Sunday, I doffed my hat to Bob Arum when he delivered a political statement that is both so hilarious and true.

Asked by reporters in the post-fight news conference what Manny Pacquaio would do next now that he had demolished Clottey, Arum said the next interesting fight will be a Pacquiao-Mayweather title-header. He said this with the obvious thought of making more money for Manny—and of course—for himself.

And then he said something that almost floored me. He noted that the decision to fight Mayweather also depends on Manny who he said is a candidate for a Congressional seat in Sarangani province.

“He’s probably going to win the election,” Arum said. “But that’s all right because if their Congress is anything like ours, they don’t do anything anyway.”

Arum also a political analyst? Hear that Prospero Nograles and Juan Ponce Enrile.