Tuesday, July 29, 2008 Malilong: Life after defeat By Frank Malilong The Other Side
I WOKE up last Sunday to a bad hangover and a bitter taste in the mouth. I slept late the night before to catch on television the expected coronation of local boxing hero AJ “Bazooka” Banal as king of the World Boxing Organization’s super flyweight division.
Like most others, including the inveterate gamblers who, my sources say, bet 10-3 (one peso to your 30 centavos) for the hometown boy, the hype leading to the fight had overtaken me. Hey, if the boxing pundits repeat themselves telling you that only a major disaster could avert a Banal shutout win, who wouldn’t think that all that our hero needed to do was to show up inside the ring at the appoin-ted time?
AJ did show up but the Panamanian they called “El Torito” refused to keel over. Rafael Concepcion plugged and plodded, absorbing the best that Banal fired from his arsenal, until that fateful tenth round when the Bazooka melted. The TV people assigned to cover the fight were talking when Banal fell and kept on talking while he was down, apparently unable to immediately decide whether to get up or not, but I can imagine how the once noisy Cebu Coliseum must have been enveloped in deathly silence during that brief sequence.
The dreaded disaster happened. The curse that has afflicted talented Cebuano boxers, such as Edito Villamor and Z Gorres, had claimed another victim.
And so the search continues for the first Cebuano since Flash Elorde almost half a century ago to capture our imagination and ignite our passion for boxing and keep it there for a long, long time.
He could still be Banal. As WBO chairman Leon Panoncillo reportedly said, the Cebuano is only 19 and still has a long way to go. He still could be the next real thing.
There is something extra painful about losing in your own hometown before your own people. But Banal should take comfort in the thought that while he came up short, he gave his all and therefore did not really let us down. The thing is for him to pick up the pieces and rebuild.
In sports as in life, you can’t win them all. Even the greatest champions suffered humiliating defeats at some point in their career. (Don’t remind me of the Game 6 thorough drubbing that Kobe Bryant and the Lakers suffered in the hearts of the ruthless Boston Celtics.)
Banal’s setback is a test of character. He can choose to mope and let the memory of his defeat intimidate him. Or he can, like a true Cebuano warrior, rise undaunted and defiant.
To flunk or pass the test, the answer is in his hands.
