In the lead-up to Manny Pacquiao’s fight against Antonio Margarito on Nov. 14, Fire Quinito will feature Sparring Sessions, a series of interviews with pundits, bloggers, and boxing fans that discuss issues that affect Pacquiao, Filipino boxing, and combat sports in general, veering into topics that mainstream media rarely talk about. Up next is Mark Lorenza, who covers boxing and MMA at his blog Pinoy Fight Scribe, talks about life after Manny Pacquiao, up-and-coming Filipino fighters, and the potential of MMA in the country.



Fire Quinito: There’s a lot of talk lately about Manny Pacquiao’s impending retirement, and it doesn’t help that his trainer Freddie Roach has openly talked about how we need to be ready to lose Pacquiao completely to politics. If and when that happens, will boxing lose its luster the same way billiards has lost most of its popularity now that Efren “Bata” Reyes is no longer a dominant force in the sport?

Mark Lorenzana: I’ve pondered Manny Pacquiao’s impending retirement in a recent blog post, and I honestly think that unless the fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. can be made right after the Margarito fight, the Pacman will eventually hang up his gloves. Freddie Roach has said that Pacquiao had told him just two days into training camp that he already misses congress, and when a fighter like Pacquiao—who always gives 250 percent in training—has other things in his mind other than the task at hand, then we really have something to worry about.

When Pacquiao eventually retires, yes, I believe that boxing will lose a bit of its luster. I say this because Pacquiao has had a big hand in pulling in people—who weren’t original fight fans to begin with—to watch his fights. There are a lot of people out there who didn’t give a crap about boxing before Pacquiao started his amazing run in capturing multiple titles in different weight divisions. And I believe that there are two kinds of fans that Pacquiao helped pull in: One, people who started watching boxing because of Pacquiao and have become lifelong boxing fans regardless of the Pacman’s impending retirement; and two, people who just watch Pacquiao fight, and who will eventually lose interest in boxing when the Pacman leaves the sport. Yes, love them or hate them, we’re gonna lose a lot of these so-called Pacquiao “nuthuggers” when the Pacman retires, and I believe that’s a substantial chunk of the current fan base.

FQ: Is there anyone in the top promoters’ stables who could potentially capture the imagination of local fans? Any names we ought to keep in mind?

ML: ALA fighter Donnie Nietes is the current WBO minimumweight champion and he has held the title for quite some time now. Nietes picked up the title (which was vacated by Ivan Calderon) in 2007 when he beat Pornsawan Porpramook at the Cebu Waterfront Hotel and Casino in Lahug. Nietes has successfully defended his title five times already, the last of which was a unanimous decision win against tough Mexican challenger Mario Rodriguez in the latter’s home turf in Guasave, Sinaloa, Mexico. Nietes is a cerebral fighter who has a nasty uppercut, an underrated chin, and superb footwork. He really has a fan-friendly style. The problem is, he is fighting at the lower weights and it’s quite hard to market the lighter boxers—from super flyweight down to minimumweight—to the mainstream audience. A case in point is Pacquiao, who started really making a name for himself internationally after jumping up to super bantamweight. The rest, as they say, is history. Nietes is a really good fighter, and although I don’t see him moving up in weight anymore, I’m pretty confident that we will see a lot of quality fights from him in the future. I only hope that more people would pay attention to him.

Outside of Nietes, however, I don’t think I can name other promising prospects. We could keep an eye on undefeated boxers Jason Pagara and Al Sabaupan, but I think Pagara should gradually step up the quality of his opponents and I think Sabaupan should at least learn some defense to be able to make it to the world stage.

I think in order for us to be able to produce top quality boxers, we need to give them world-class training—especially in conditioning—and world-class opponents that will challenge them enough to bring out the best in them.

FQ: You’ve covered MMA in your blog, and while the sport has its fair share of fans in the country, it hasn’t captured the mass following that boxing has. Experts say that now that Cain Velasquez is the UFC heavyweight champion, more Mexican fans will tune in to the sport. Is there any hope that the same thing would happen for MMA in the Philippines, especially if Manny retires?

ML: Mixed martial arts has grown in popularity here in the Philippines, thanks in large part of course to the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The good thing about the UFC is that it is a far cry from boxing when pitting the best fighters against each other is concerned. There’s a lot of bullshit going on in boxing that’s why the best aren’t fighting the best, and you can’t say the same thing for the UFC. The UFC has flourished, mainly because Dana White, its president, is a no-nonsense kind of guy. He’s not afraid of pitting his fighters against each other if that’s what the fans are clamoring for, and boxing would do well to take a page out of the UFC’s book in this respect.

There are a couple of major homegrown MMA promotions here in the Philippines: the Universal Reality Combat Championship (URCC) and the Fearless Fighting Championship (FCC). The URCC uses a roped square ring similar to what the now-defunct Japan-based Pride Fighting Championship used, while the FCC uses a cage-like enclosure similar to the UFC’s Octagon. Both promotions feature their own crop of exciting fighters, and a lot of MMA fans here in the Philippines have taken notice.
There are also quite a few Filipino-Americans who have made it to the UFC, namely Mark “The Filipino Wrecking Machine” Muñoz and Brandon “The Truth” Vera. But, and don’t get me wrong here, those guys are really more American than Filipino. What I want to see is a pure homegrown talent (like Pacquiao) that can make it, say, to the World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC), the UFC’s sister promotion that focuses more on the lower weights (its lowest weight division is bantamweight, where fighters campaign at the 135 weight limit).

But I think it will take some time before we can produce such a fighter. The advantage of other countries like Brazil, Japan, and the United States is that they have fight disciplines such as jiu-jitsu, judo and shoot fighting, and Greco-Roman wrestling—sports that provide a great base for MMA.
It will take a lot of work for us to produce a world-class MMA contender, but thanks to the sprouting jiu-jitsu, Yaw-Yan, and MMA gyms all around the country, that time will surely come.

FQ: Manny Pacquiao’s reign atop the world pound-for-pound rankings has opened so many doors for Filipino fighters to break into the big time, but the careers every top prospect apart from Manny, even Nonito Donaire, can be described as a disappointment. Did our guys squander the opportunity?

ML: We have to be honest and say that a lot of our boxers did come up short. In the case of Nonito Donaire, his problem is inactivity and the fact that Bob Arum, his promoter, has not been able to secure for his boxer the high profile fights that Donaire deserves. In the case of Brian Viloria, and I have written about him already in the past, he cannot seem to hold on to his belts long enough to enjoy a lengthy title reign.

Rey “Boom Boom” Bautista, for all his natural punching power, needs to improve on his defense—he still lacks head and upper body movement and his stance is awkward, that’s why he tends to get hit too much. AJ Banal is promising, but I didn’t like his body language in his last fight—I honestly think he could have continued fighting even if he got punched on the break. I know that his opponent, Luis Perez, used an underhanded tactic, but I’m pretty sure Banal is not that proud of winning by disqualification.

Gerry Peñalosa, who recently retired after winning his last fight, had a great career. He has won the WBC super flyweight and WBO bantamweight titles and he turned back the clock (even though he came up short) against Daniel Ponce de Leon and when he knocked out Jhonny Gonzales. However, I have a feeling that he really wanted to win the super bantamweight championship before retiring. I would say that he was just too small for both Ponce de Leon and Juan Manuel Lopez.

To reiterate what I said earlier, in order for us to produce a new crop of world-class boxers, we need to provide these kids with world-class training and world-class opponents.

FQ: What’s going to happen in the Manny Pacquiao-Antonio Margarito fight?

ML: I’m not really the best person to ask about fight predictions, Jaemark, I’m pretty sure you know my prediction record. But let me give you my prediction for this fight nonetheless.

The so-called distractions plaguing Team Pacquiao’s training camp notwithstanding, I think they will be able to make up for lost time during the final push at Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Gym. Sure, Roach and conditioning expert Alex Ariza have been complaining about the Baguio camp and they both have been vocal about the distractions that have hounded Pacquiao’s training in the Philippines. But with Manny now in Los Angeles, his mind will be (hopefully) 100 percent focused on training. We all know that when Pacquiao puts his mind into training, he’s a machine.

In the case of Margarito, he should be extremely grateful to Bob Arum for giving him a Pacquiao fight. Hell, he should be extremely grateful to Bob Arum for giving him a fight at all. I still believe that Margarito knew that his former trainer used illegal hand wraps.

Pacquiao will be too fast and too active against the plodding Margarito. Pacquiao by TKO in the eight.

Hell, I just hope I don’t jinx the guy.

Read more of Mark's thoughts on boxing and mixed martial arts at Pinoy Fight Scribe.