MY FRIEND and veteran sportswriter Dennis Principe offered a fresh insight on the saga of Eumir Marcial, the talented Olympian who is the target of vultures in the pro boxing circuit with tempting offers to abandon his Olympic dream to turn pro.
Dennis, who by the way is Radyo Pilipinas’ voice in the Laging Handa briefing, offered the MVP option, one that not many of us have thought about.
What is the MVP option? Well, if Gilas Pilipinas, backed by the billionaire known all over the country by his initials, can afford to pay millions of pesos for an American to become a naturalized Filipino to play for the flag, why can’t he do the same for Marcial? I think Marcial, as one of the country’s elite athletes, gets as much as P40,000 a month as allowance from the Philippine Sports Commission and MVP could easily add another zero to that with as much thought as ordinary Pinoys would about buying candy.
And though in fairness to Marcial, he has shown no interest of abandoning his Olympic dream in favor of the millions the promoters are promising, an offer like that could certainly ease his feelings over rejecting multi-million signing bonuses, right?
However, the only thing that make the MVP option not that suitable is how the other Olympians would feel if MVP starts giving boxers extra dough, while they are overlooked. So far, EJ Obiena and Carlos Yulo are also being tagged as medal favorites in Tokyo but unlike boxing, there are no vultures/promoters in track and gymnastics.
Anyway, it’s good that Marcial has said he won’t abandon the country’s quests for an Olympic gold, unlike some top amateurs of the past who got lured by promoters a year or two years away from the Olympics.
Manny Pacquaio, who incidentally has expressed his desire in the past to fight in the Olympics once the pros got the go signal, has given him a juicy offer, stay in the national team and once he turns pro, he can get him a title fight in just his third fight.
And we all know that when it comes to boxing, Pacquiao can deliver on that promise.
As to Marcial being good enough to be fighting for a title in just his third fight, I think the fact that the promoters are circling over him is proof of that. Besides, by the time he turns pro, he’ll have close to a decade’s experience in the amateur ranks, with the last three or four years in the elite tournaments, that should be the equivalent to pro fighters making four, six or eight rounders in their first two years.