Lesnar vs. Mir, UFC

   It’s big news in Yahoo! Sports: former WWE Champion Brock Lesnar versus former UFC Heavyweight Champion Frank Mir in the octagon.  The headline reads: “Fake wrestling star tries UFC.”  Can Brock Lesnar, an untested MMA fighter who made a name for himself in professional wrestling, beat a seasoned MMA fighter in Frank Mir?

   Tale of the tape: Lesnar is 6′3″, 265 lbs., 1-0-0 record in MMA, wrestler.  Mir is 6′1″, 240 lbs., 10-3-0 record in MMA, Brazilian jiu-jitsu specialist.

   Let me break it down for you: this is mixed martial arts, this is the Ultimate Fighting Championship.  This isn’t about whacking a steel chair over somebody’s head or choreographed fighting with soap opera elements thrown in.  This is “real fighting,” although it involves a great part of watching two men roll around on the canvas for three minutes or so.

   Because this is “real fighting,” my crystal ball is not as clear as it is compared to predicting plot lines in pro wrestling.  Having watched my own fair share of both fighters’ fight videos to make “objective” predictions, it’s still pretty vague to me who will win the match.  As good as Lesnar is on the mount, Mir is equally good on his back.  The cinch is that Mir cannot escape Lesnar’s powerful takedown, but he’s in the perfect position to dispense with an armbar.

   It’s not like I’m Michael Vick or anything, but I did gamble twice on a cockfight.   Me and a couple of friends headed off long ago to the Lamtang Cockfighting Arena, made fifty-peso bets on a politician’s cock (so to speak), and came away winning P500.  Given how far Lamtang is (it’s a good 20 minutes away from Baguio), and given that I’m not an expert in cockfighting, I haven’t gone there since.

   The newest Internet sensation today (or so I’m told by my friends here at The Shop) is Japanese “bug fighting.”  JapaneseBugFights.com (JBF), which I assume is the World Wrestling Entertainment of bug fighting, has only three rules:

1. Two bugs to a fight.
2. Bug fights go on as long as they have to.
3. No outside weapons in bug fights.

   For those of you tired of Manny Pacquiao matches or scripted ballet in pro wrestling, JBF offers matches like Scorpion vs. Beetle, Praying Mantis vs. Cockroach, Tarantula vs. Stick Insect, and Wasp vs. Cricket.  Surprisingly, I find JBF entertaining: as a kid, I used to play with small spiders that come inside wooden match boxes.  This is basically an extension of it, only that JBF comes with color commentary.  I’m starting to think that Big Black Beetle With Big Claws is the Undertaker of JBF, with Scorpion as its Batista.

   While it took me a while to appreciate soccer and that my interest in basketball has dwindled, I find myself increasingly being a fan of bug fighting.  Surely this is the pinnacle of entomological machismo: gladiatorial events in the insect world.  I’m sure that something like a ladybird or a grasshopper dreams of being the JBF champion.  Maximus’ most overused quote in Gladiator applies to insects as it does to humans: what we do in life echoes in eternity.

   Or at least in the short lifespan of a bug.

   Animal activists, of course, find this appalling.  The Jains, for example, would sweep aside a cockroach than to kill it.  The sanctity of life, universal as it is, should apply to insects: after all, they have “feelings.”  I think that the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) will consider this “barbaric:” that anthropocentric cruelty will endanger the well-being of bugs, which “are people too.”

   That won’t stop me from watching it.

   Just when I promised myself to quit writing about Manny Pacquiao, here comes another issue about him.

   Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I don’t hate Manny personally.  I have nothing to gain or to lose by writing anything about, for, or against Manny Pacquiao.  I’m entitled to a few opinions about him: one being that as far as one-dimensional boxers are concerned, he’s the best one-dimensional boxer in the world today.  Another being that he’s a first-rate patriot, a second-rate nationalist, and a third-rate politician.

   I think that getting fed up with Pacquiao - “Manny fatigue” - is not the reason why bloggers like myself are vocal in our contempt for him.  To be honest, most Filipinos would never tire of Pacquiao’s blazing speed and boxing prowess, and they will never tire of his indiscretions and excesses outside the ring ropes.  Manny gets himself into too much trouble: he digs too many holes and falls into them far too many times.  Manny, as a public figure, is a lot like a Britney Spears or a Paris Hilton or a Lindsay Lohan: far from being the national icon that he was then, Manny Pacquiao is now the new national embarrassment.

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   Glitchline and Tin Tinapay have already released the “Manny Pacquiao Scandal:” no, it’s not footage from “Anak ng Kumander” that involved torrid kissing scenes with Ara Mina and Valerie Concepcion (the latter appearing on “Entertainment Live” not too long ago in tears for whatever Pacman did to her), and Manny’s bad acting.  Instead, Manny - wearing a striped pink shirt I will never have the guts to wear - is seen dancing with some hot chicks at Embassy Bar.

   While you can’t really believe everything you see in the Internet, there’s just no denying that the guy wearing that hideous shirt (and gyrating with that girl clad in mucus green) is indeed the Philippines’ national boxing “hero.”  I do graphic design on the side, and there’s no way you can tell me that it is possible with current and available technology to “edit” that picture to make someone else look like Manny.

  Here’s the problem: Manny is idolized, if not venerated (without understanding, to invoke Renato Constantino), by the Filipino people.  In “Anak ng Kumander,” he portrayed a man of great ideals and fervent passion: in his “scandal,” he presents himself to be a lesser man of worldly passions.  Not that I’m preaching morals on Manny - who is more devout than I am - but is this something you would expect not only from a national icon, but from a married man?

   I’m not saying that Manny is unattractive: maybe, just maybe, some women have developed a taste for his looks.  But that’s a non-issue.  Had Manny been single, there would have been a perfect excuse for him to do some thinly-disguised philandering at a bar.  I feel for Jinky Pacquiao: being married to a hugely popular boxing superstar and entertainment icon is bad enough, and she had to put up with her husband being linked to so many showbiz personalities.  I don’t know what would go on in her mind if she hears about this.

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   Besides, there’s no denying the allegation that Manny has already become so pig-headed.  Here’s a guy who slept in cardboard boxes as a kid.  In his early days as a boxer, Manny didn’t fight for glory: he fought for something to put in his stomach.  The soonest that Manny became this larger-than-life “superstar,” Manny was no longer the consummate pugilist: the decent boxer who did good, the kind of man who deserves a statue alongside the likes of Pancho Villa and Gabriel “Flash” Elorde.  The more that Manny commits self-imposed acts of character assassination, we who follow boxing become more exposed not only to his mistakes as a man, but his mistakes as a boxer.

   Make no mistake about it: no matter how many Magic Sing microphones are sold all over the world carrying a karaoke version of “Para Sa ‘Yo Ang Laban Na ‘To,” Manny is, was, and forever will be a boxer.  The soonest that Manny quit being a “boxer” and became a “superstar,” his boxing talent diminished.  What grandness, what pride would it have been if Manny took extra miles in his practice to legitimately knock out Erik Morales.

   You have rising stars like Boom Boom Bautista and AJ Banal who shy away from the glitz and glamor of entertainment, and are making shockwaves everywhere.  Not because of their “scandals,” but because they are honing themselves in the gym, guided by some hope that one day, they’ll be like Manny Pacquiao.  You have young men working out in gyms, fighting for loose change in rundown arenas with sunken canvasses and sagging ropes, hoping that one day, they’ll be like Manny Pacquiao.

   I beg to differ.

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   You might be telling yourselves that I’m just one of them gnat-like bloggers: pests who misinterpret the right to publicly-disclosed information.  “Pseudo-journalists” who don’t have editorial policies.  You might even say that we leech upon Manny’s popularity (or anyone else’s, for that matter) and destroy his public life because we have nothing better to do on idle afternoons.

   Of course I am, but at the same time, I’m not.  You see, like every Filipino, I once had the utmost respect for Manny Pacquiao.  I believed in Manny Pacquiao.  I placed bets not against Manny, but for Manny.  I overlooked every mistake he made in the ring and believed that this was going to be a short, exciting fight worth my bet.

   They say that the boxer must lord things over in two rings: the boxing ring that wins you championships, and the boxing ring that is life itself.  Manny is winning the first few rounds of the boxing ring that is life: he’s getting money, undivided attention, and indiscreet trips to Embassy.  But what of his public life, his family life, his place in history?  No one knows for sure.  But the history books right now are writing that one part of Manny’s history that we should all look forward to forgetting: Superstar Manny.  Rockstar Manny.  And when it all comes down, when all the lights go out and the fans start leaving, there really ain’t no such thing.

   That ain’t all that goes with being a rock star.  Ah, Cypress Hill.

   My theory is that if you pull off WWE programming from Philippine television, the masses will finally be convinced of corruption and oppression and they will rise up in revolution.  As such, it becomes painfully obvious that the next big step in Pinoy copycat programming is not the televised horse-afflicted-with-HIV-semen that is “Zaido” (I’m entitled to my opinion), but Filipino-style professional wrestling.  I don’t know where exactly I watched it, but there used to be a Filipino wrestling promotion in the 1980s.  I say, bring it back.

   I am definitely on high spirits following the RAW 15th anniversary special (and man, did Sunny look HOT indeed), and I have it all figured out: the ratings will be huge if GMA-7 or ABS-CBN-2 (heck, even IBC-13) if they showed an all-Filipino wrestling promotion.  To hell with the moralistic debates on whether or not wrestling corrupts the minds of the youth, or if Joey de Leon would be his usual sanctimonious self when he castigates Filipino wrestling on “Startalk.”

   There are a few things right about a Pinoy celebrity wrestling promotion:

• Our soap opera plotlines are so convoluted that we can accommodate everything from bastard children to love triangles.
• We have so many celebrity sex scandals that the idea of a Lingerie Pudding Match is enough to boost the ratings.
• The bloodlust between GMA-7 and ABS-CBN-2 talent is enough for a 10-man elimination tag match a’la Survivor Series.
• We can hold a 30-man Battle Royal featuring all the Magdalo mutineers.
• Manny Pacquiao can try his hand in challenging his critics not in a boxing fight, but in Hell in a Cell.
• We can settle the feud between Willie Revillame and Joey de Leon in Last Man Standing, with the stipulation that the loser retires and leaves the entertainment industry forever.
• Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla, Jr. versus OMB Chairman Edu Manzano is a good main-event draw.
• We determine who’s the better Zaido in a triple-threat match.
• Lolit Solis doesn’t have to go to court because she’ll be facing off against Piolo Pascual.

   Ah… bowling.  It lends itself way to double-entendre: holding a ball, rolling it out of the palm of your hand, hitting pins at the end of the lane.  You grunt and groan when the ball hits either canal, and whoop when your ball hits the rack dead-on.

   Olympian Lanes have been around ever since I was a kid: back in the day, it was still pretty much a wholesome family-friendly bowling alley that had a candy store in the entrance.  Back then, we gorge ourselves on cotton candy and big swirly lollipops, and leave balls sticky with damp sugar when we loft the balls around in the lanes our parents play in.

   The candy store has given way to a stall that sells warm beer, but it’s still pretty much the same alley that me and the family went to when I was a kid: same balls, same pins, and it still employs pinboys.

   In all honesty, I can’t bowl good: today, I bowled two 75-point games in duckpin.  During Christmas, I tag along with my uncle and my cousins to play ten-pin at the AMF Puyat lanes at Baguio Center Mall.  While I would pose a legitimate challenge in ten-pin, I suck at duckpin.  Maybe it’s a psychosomatic Freudian impulse of having two big boulders than three small grapefruits.  Is hitting the heckling pinboys a strike, a spare, a break, or a bad sprain?