"A Marketable Circus" Ed Tolentino on Pacquiao-McGregor Fight

"One of the hottest issues of today (in Philippine sports) is the Pacquiao versus McGregor bout"That's how veteran boxing analyst, Attorney Ed Tolentino described it.

"Off the Record" with Migs Bustos took a different path for its eighth episode on Friday as it took a pause from basketball-related topics and discussed another story that is close to the Filipino boxing fans and it involves arguably one of the greatest boxers of all time: Senator Manny Pacquiao who is set to fight against Conor McGregor in a mega-fight next year. According to boxing observers, the pay-per-view for the said fight that will be held in the Middle East is expected to hit a record 750 million US Dollars. And when it comes to boxing both here and abroad, the name of Ed Tolentino comes to mind as he is one of the most reputable boxing minds. 

While he applauded Pacquiao's desire which is to donate the amount he will earn from the said fight to the ongoing campaign against 2019 Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), Tolentino said, "The truth cannot be removed that this fight is bound to be a circus" He elaborated that "You're talking about Manny Pacquiao who is an eight-division world champion with 20 years' worth of experience going up against McGregor who is 0-1 as a professional boxer. Even the fans are getting irritated because they haven't seen fights that they always wanted to see because of politics" Tolentino continued "What is happening right now is you have Mike Tyson coming back to face Ray Jones. You have Oscar De La Hoya also coming back. Other great legends who are supposedly retired (are also coming back). And now you have this: Manny Pacquiao-Conor McGregor. I thought from the outset that this fight will eventually happen because there is so much money involved" 

He concluded "This is the trend nowadays. There's money involved. You have to take it for what it is. It's a circus but it's a marketable circus"  

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