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I remember a Philippine proverb as I write this piece.
Kung gusto, maraming paraan, kung ayaw, maraming dahilan. A rough translation to English would be: “Those who want (to do something) (find) many ways; Those who don’t want (to do something) (find) many excuses.
This saying seems particularly apt in light of the recent developments regarding the proposed “superfight” between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. that, as of this writing, has been officially called off, according to various reports.
Let’s face it. Right off the bat, Floyd Jr. never really appeared too eager to face Pacquiao. He had a pretty long laundry list of alibis or reasons, however, so that he could avoid the fight at all costs, alibis or reasons of which are perhaps a little bit preposterous, if not mind-boggling.
I’ll try to enumerate a few of them, just off the top of my head:
1. Pacquiao had already lost several fights in the past few years, so if Floyd Jr. beat him, people would accuse Mayweather of defeating an inferior opponent (or words to that effect).
2. Pacquiao never really called Mayweather Jr. out. When asked who he would like to fight next, Pacquiao would always answer that it is his job to fight and that in turn, it is his promoter’s job to give him an opponent.
3. Pacquiao has been using some kind of performance-enhancing drug, a drug that has been manufactured in the Philippines– a third-world country riddled by poverty, corruption, and violence but has been able, in some way, to mysteriously and miraculously master the art of steroid-making, to the point that its chemists could create a drug that is virtually undetectable to world-class drug tests– that could give an athlete superhuman strength to be able to jump from several weight divisions (from flyweight to welterweight) and destroy every single opponent in his or her path. (Having said this, let me digress a bit. Perhaps Lance Armstrong– an athlete that has been riddled by steroid accusations for years, accusations which have remained unproven — got his hands on some performance-enhancing drugs in some place in the Philippines?)
Like I said, reasons. And Bob Arum is visibly irked; he is understandably pissed off. Who wouldn’t? Floyd Jr.’s camp just wasted everybody’s precious time.
“The fight is off,” Arum told USA Today. “Floyd Mayweather walked away. Our guy was agreeable, Mayweather wasn’t. The fight’s off.”
Pacquiao, for his part it would seem, really wanted the fight. He accepted a proposal to have a blood test 24 days before the fight and immediately after. This after he initially said that he would only agree to have his blood drawn 30 days before the bout.
Pacquiao tried to compromise, he tried to find ways so that the fight would push through, but to no avail.
Perhaps people are asking why Floyd had to resort to all that bull, appearing to be interested in the fight and making all sorts of demands, when in the end, he would just screw everyone involved?
Permit me to answer this question with a nostalgic sequence.
I remember a couple of friends who once went to the same university I studied in. The three of us were classmates in one minor subject, a subject we all immensely disliked. Personally, I disliked the subject because of the timing: 2 pm was a time wherein I’ve just had a heavy lunch and had drunk roughly a case of Red Horse extra strong beer with some drinking buddies before going to class. Heck, I wanted to pass the subject badly and so I went to class even though I was stinking drunk. Ben, my friend, was pretty smart and did pretty well particularly in the specific subject I am referring to, but I seemed to sense that he was afraid to fail because the professor who was teaching the subject enjoyed terrorizing us, his students. The guy made it a point to make his one-hour class a living hell for everyone involved. Ben, who struck me as a sort of a coward, would cut the class regularly, giving absurd alibis (once he wrote to our professor in an excuse letter that he had dysmenorrhea. Perhaps he didn’t have sisters or a mother or a girlfriend?) on why he’d be absent. Jenny my other friend, wasn’t really that smart and she also disliked the professor but because she really wanted to pass, she’d suck it up– she studied religiously and went to class diligently. And, I might add, and to her credit, she was always sober.
In the end I got a passing grade– barely (what would you expect from a wino?), Jenny got one of the highest grades in our class (without taking steroids or performance-enhancing drugs, but who knows? She didn’t undergo a random, Olympic-style drug test to prove her innocence), and Ben, his brilliance on the subject notwithstanding, and despite his stupid and idiotic alibis to our professor, of course, flunked. What would you expect from somebody who chickened-out during an entire semester on a subject handled by a tough professor?
I bet to this day Ben still hears my drunken ramblings when he told me that he was disappointed when our teacher flunked him, he couldn’t believe it, and that he was at a loss. I could only answer: “Kung gusto, maraming paraan; kung ayaw, maraming dahilan.” Or words to that effect.
I bet many years from now, Floyd Mayweather Jr. would still hear one of his family members’ incoherent ramblings (as they are wont to do when speaking, intoxicated or otherwise), perhaps from his father or from his uncle Roger or perhaps from both– ramblings always stemming from some deep-seated regret –on why people never really respected Floyd Jr. as a fighter and why he is the butt of all jokes after he blew the fight of all fights that could have made him a multimillionaire again (win or lose) and would have cemented his legacy had he won it: “Those who want (to do something) (find) many ways; Those who don’t want (to do something) (find) many excuses.”
Or words to that effect.
