DEAR Tony,
Howdy? I pray and hope you are fine as usual, my friend.
I write to express my views on Mark “Magnifico” Magsayo.
Deeply disturbed I am over reports that Magsayo is no longer under your revered ALA Boxing, the famed outfit that you had so painstakingly built to now become the nation’s foremost stable of champions and future world titleholders.
I write to you because I care.
You have left ALA Boxing to the care of Michael, your equally esteemed son, citing age concerns. Fine.
Wrote my glass mate Recah Trinidad in “Bare Eye,” the country’s most read sports column the last three decades or so, on Feb. 16: “You know, I’m no longer a spring chicken.”
Recah was, of course, quoting you.
I was with you and Recah when you said that, during a beer binge at a Rockwell bar in Makati, if memory serves. The occasion was to mark one of your rare but much-awaited visits to the asphalt jungle this side of the globe.
Last time we met was a couple or so years back, when you had me invited to cover an Ahas Nietes top-biller in Cebu that had the exciting Pagara brothers in the supporting bouts.
It gave me so much joy then to hear you say you jog every morning to stay in tip-top shape all these years. Your belly-free waist and fat-free frame could only belong to a man freed from the frigging routine of minding the store almost 24/7.
“Time to rest a bit,” you told me then during dinner at your seaside rest house. “Let the young ones take over.”
And so, Michael, the curly-topped, handsome heir to the ALA Boxing throne, is on record as doing a good job all this time. The enormously popular “Pinoy Pride” is one proof to that.
But then came this un-magnificent Magsayo mess.
I’m sure it’s not Michael’s undoing that Magsayo had bolted camp.
A pity. The kid has massive potential. With proper timing, he could hit the big time.
I don’t mean to be rude, if not intrude, but as your brother in life, may I suggest that you request Michael to let go of Magsayo?
Whatever Mark’s reason for leaving doesn’t matter. He is history.
Better to move on than waste time on a wayward wag.
All ways, Al.