THE BATTLE LINES ARE BEING DRAWN
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 23 Mar 2007
The battle lines are being drawn following Manny Pacquiao’s decision to turn his back on ABS-CBN and sign up with Solar Sports for his clash with undefeated but unknown Jorge Solis in San Antonio, Texas on April 14.
The giant broadcast network which gave Pacquiao a whopping $4 million to stage the fight card headlined by his encounter with Oscar Larios at the Araneta Coliseum, spent another P6 million for a musical extravaganza on his 28th birthday and has systematically enhanced his public image since last year, isn’t pleased over what Pacquiao did, especially after Solar Sports struck a deal to telecast the fight on the rival network GMA 7.
What was even worse was Pacquiao’s allegation that ABS-CBN had a hand in the filing by Golden Boy Promotions of a request for an injunction from a Las Vegas court to stop the Solis fight and Top Rank promoter Bob Arum’s charge that ABS-CBN was “resorting to tactics to sabotage the promotion.”
Solar Sports CEO Peter Chanliong who has worked closely with ABS-CBN on past Pacquiao fights added to the growing disaffection when he said Solar was proud to team up with the Philippines No.1 network forgetting perhaps that Solar Sports successful cable sports channel airs on SkyCable which is controlled by the Lopez family which also owns ABS-CBN.
It certainly doesn't help that Solar Sports went after the PBL TV coverage of ABS-CBN which was aired on Studio 23 and succeeded in prying it out of the giant network for airing on its basketball channel which is also on SkyCable. That not only created a programming vacuum but also resulted in some of the top contractual talents handling the coverage to look for jobs elsewhere.
Golden Boy Promotions, their Philippine partners Tony Aldeguer and Sammy Gello-ani last February 25 teamed up with ABS-CBN to stage the remarkably successful “Moment of Truth” fight card at the Cebu City Sports Complex which rated much better than the primetime entertainment programs of GMA prompting the Lopez network to take a hard look at big-time boxing events on a regular basis pushing GMA to get into the act.
However, the first such venture between ABS-CBN and the Golden Boy group was the classic and highly successful “Fearless” showdown between Marco Antonio Barrera and Juan Manuel Marquez last March 18 in Las Vegas while the next would be the blockbuster fight card ‘The World Awaits” headlined by the great Oscar De La Hoya and Ring Magazine’s No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world Floyd Mayweather. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer told Viva Sports/Manila Standard Today, this was only the beginning.
In an overseas telephone conversation Schaefer revealed that because Arum and Pacquiao “went as well with Solar and ABS’s competitor, I talked to the ABS people and we are forming an alliance and we are going to be working very closely with ABS-CBN for all of the Golden Boy fights.” He said they will also work closely with all their Filipino fighters like Rey “Boom Boom” Bautista, Z “The Dream” Gorres and AJ Banal as well as Gerry Penalosa.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.
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