By Ronnie Nathanielsz
In what many sports journalists said came as a surprise, ABS-CBN has picked North Cotabato governor Manny Pinol to team up with veteran broacaster and "In This Corner" boxing show anchorman Sev Sarmenta to cover the Manny Pacquiao-Oscar Larios main event in the Mano-A-Mano showdown at the Araneta Coliseum on July 2.
When it was first announced that ABS-CBN was putting up $4million to bankroll the fight card of Manny Pacquiao Promotions, the giant network’s vice president for sports, Peter Musngi said they would use network talents as commentators and not outsiders for their coverage that will be beamed worldwide.
However, Viva Sports/Manila Standard Today learned that the network had first asked well-known TV analyst and widely-read columnist Quinito Henson to do the coverage with in-house talent Sarmenta but that Henson had declined. Henson cited family engagements in the US and also indicated he didn’t wish to be unfair to Solar Sports who had lost the rights for the Pacquiao fight to ABS-CBN.
The choice of Pinol as replacement for Henson caught journalists by surprise since the governor is not an ABS-CBN talent and although he has a boxing program in his region isn’t a regular TV analyst. However, Pinol has covered several Pacquiao fights as well as fights of former two-division world champion Luisito Espinosa in the past. The governor is reportedly close to Pacquiao.
An ABS-CBN source said Pacquiao himself had wanted Pinol on the coverage team in order to provide representation from Mindanao, a region where the Filipino ring idol comes from. The same source said a Mexican broadcast team was flying in to do the coverage for a large Hispanic audience but that WBC super featherweight champion Marco Antonio Barrera who was supposedly coming to Manila to do the fight coverage would not be here.
It was also learned that the announcements by MP Promotions individuals that Joe Frazier, Oscar De La Hoya and Laila Ali were coming were mere hype for which the network was not responsible.
