Bradley Is Not Pacquiao's Most Taxing Concern

Published

11 years ago

March 27, 2014

Bernard Fernandez

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Let me tell you how it will be

There’s one for you, 19 for me

’Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the Taxman

–Lyrics from a George Harrison-written song on the Beatles’ Rubber Soul album

Manny Pacquiao (55-5-2, 38 KOs) challenges WBO welterweight champion Timothy “Desert Storm” Bradley (31-0, 12 KOs) in an HBO Pay-Per-View bout on April 12 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand, and the gist of most of the questions directed by inquiring media minds toward the Filipino legend ran toward what might be described as standard boxing matters. The give-an-take exchanges during Tuesday’s half-hour-long conference call with Pacquiao went something like this:

Q: Are you concerned that you could again get stiffed on the scorecards like you did in your first fight with Bradley? (Bradley was awarded a hotly disputed split decision, also at the MGM Grand, on June 9, 2012.)

MP: “I’m not thinking about the judges. What I want to do is focus on strategy and techniques that we practiced in the ring.”

Q: Does it bother you that Bradley is dropping broad hints that, since your first fight with him, you’ve lost your “hunger” for boxing and “killer instinct” to finish off opponents in trouble?

MP: “The more he says that, the more it inspires me. It’s good for me. But not for him, I think.”

Q: Did you think you were too far ahead on points to possibly lose a decision, and were you shocked when those two judges (Duane Ford and C.J. Ross) turned in cards favoring Bradley?

MP: “I’m not angry. After that decision was announced, I understood that no one is perfect in this world (a reference, presumably, to Ford and Ross). Sometimes mistakes are made. It’s part of boxing.”

Q: Having been a victim of malfeasance by pencil once before, do you feel any additional pressure to score a knockout this time and take matters out of the judges’ hands?

MP: “We’re not focusing on a knockout. Our focus this time is to put on more pressure, to be more aggressive, to throw a lot of punches. If a knockout comes, it comes.”

Pretty tame stuff, all things considered. Then again, Pacquiao never has been the sort to recklessly run his mouth before, during or after fights. He is, by all accounts, gentlemanly in his demeanor and, let’s not forget, he’s also a politician, a member of the Philippine Congress with aspirations of someday becoming his nation’s president. Good manners and rough-and-tumble political instincts seldom are mutually inclusive, but it probably helps those seeking to gain or retain public office if they maintain at least a veneer of humility and the proper social graces.

What has largely gone unsaid in the run-up to this fight, the outcome of which could drastically influence whatever remains of the 35-year-old Pacquiao’s boxing career, is the identity of the most fearsome opponent he actually is facing. The scary dude in question is the same one who long ago flattened the great Joe Louis harder than Rocky Marciano ever could. As he did when he went after the “Brown Bomber,” that foe is targeting “Pac-Man” with a blistering, two-fisted attack, throwing wide haymakers from near and far.

Put it this way: Bradley might be one tough cookie inside the ropes, but that shadowy presence – be he based in the U.S. or in the Philippines — is even more relentless, forever boring in with stinging shots to a prosperous fighter’s bank accounts. What is it that Louis once said? Oh, yeah. You can run, but you can’t hide.

Not from the Taxman, anyway.

Including endorsements, Pacquiao has earned more than $300 million, which certainly seems like a lot of money, and is a figure even more impressive when you consider that, as recently as 2010, the per-capita income in the Philippines was just $2,000, among the lowest of any Asian country. If the PPV numbers are as healthy as Top Rank founder Bob Arum anticipates, Pacquiao’s take for the second twirl around the ring with Bradley could add $15 million-plus to his presumably bulging coffers.

But really rich people aren’t exempt from the kind of money problems that confront less-well-paid workers everywhere, except that theirs are on a much grander scale. The Internal Revenue Service here and its Philippine counterpart have homed in on Pacquiao like heat-seeking missiles. As of December, the IRS was pursuing Pacquiao for $18.3 million in unpaid taxes, with $11 million of the debt relating to the very years (2008 and 2009) that the fighter promised the Philippine government he had fully paid his tax obligation to the United States.

If tax officials in the Philippines are to be believed, Pacquiao’s past-due tax bill there is even more staggering: $50 million.

Asked if his tax problems might be blurring his focus on the task at hand as the rematch with Bradley approaches, Pacquiao insisted it’s no big deal.

“I’m not going to worry about that,” he said. “I didn’t hide anything, and I hired a very good accountant.”

That accountant had better be world-class sharp because, well, the ones Louis sought out to alleviate his crushing tax debt to the IRS were more overmatched than the members of the Bum of the Month Club he so casually dispatched during his long heavyweight championship reign.

One month after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Louis gave his entire $65,200 purse (around $700,000 in today’s money) from his first-round knockout of Buddy Baer to the Naval Relief Fund. Less than three months later, he gave his entire $45,882 purse for his sixth-round stoppage of Abe Simon to the Army Relief Fund. Louis then put his boxing career on hold to enlist in the Army as a private, earning $21 a month.

When hostilities ended, Louis, despite his patriotism-inspired contributions to the American war effort, found himself owing the IRS $500,000. Compound-interest penalties regularly inflated that amount like the clicking meter of a taxi ride that never ends, and Louis died a broke and broken man. Overly trusting, ignorant of things like tax shelters and municipal bonds, and generous to a fault, it has been estimated that one of boxing’s most dominant champions received only $800,000 or so from the estimated $4.6 million he earned during his ring career.

Not that the same fate awaits Pacquiao, but there is another old saying, this one coined by Spanish philosopher George Santayana: Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Attempts at slipping those big shots from the Taxman have already influenced where Pacquiao plies his trade, and likely will continue to do so, most probably for the remainder of his ring career. His most recent bout – a 12-round unanimous decision over Brandon Rios on Nov. 24 — took place in Macao, China, in large part because of the top marginal tax rate there is 12 percent as opposed to the United States’ newly increased top rate of 39.6 percent. That meant that Pacquiao pocketed an extra 28 cents on the dollar, a not insubstantial amount and especially appealing to anyone facing his burgeoning tax problems.

Somebody on the conference call asked if Pacquiao would consider fighting in New York City, either at Madison Square Garden in midtown Manhattan or Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. Pacquiao said sure, he’d like that, if it made financial sense for him to do so.

That response provided Arum with an opportunity to jump in and explain the tax-code-influenced economics of boxing, which largely dictates who fights whom, and where.

“Manny is a foreign national,” Arum explained. “If he fights in New York, he has to pay state tax, city tax, unincorporated business tax. It comes to 14 percent. Because he’s a foreign national, he can’t take a credit for any of those taxes. The penalty for him fighting in New York (instead of Nevada, which has no state tax), if Manny’s earnings are $20 million, is as much as $3 million.

“It’s conceivable if somebody is going to make up the difference, that we would fight in New York. But why should it come out of (Pacquiao’s) pocket?”

The same rationale helps explain why Floyd Mayweather Jr. is fighting Marcos Madaina at the MGM Grand on May 3, instead of the Barclays Center, which had also sought to host that bout.

When Pacquiao fought Rios, someone – uh, that would be me – suggested he would have to overcome the “mother of all distractions,” namely Typhoon Haiyan, which had struck the northern Philippines on Nov. 7, killing 5,000 of “Pac-Man’s” countrymen and leaving hundreds of thousands more homeless, hungry and desperate.

Perhaps Pacquiao’s concentration is so riveted on Bradley that the dark tax cloud that is hovering over his head won’t be the granddaddy of all distractions, and one that could prove more nettlesome than that which drifted in with Haiyan. But Bradley is a better overall fighter than Rios, and Pacquiao is 35, after all, an age when the reflexes of many elite fighters slow just enough to make a difference.

The only thing that seems absolutely certain at this point is that Pacquiao will not enter the ring to the sounds of George Harrison’s amplified voice singing of the Taxman reaching deep into his pocket.

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Bernard Fernandez

“Breadman” Edwards: An Unlikely Boxing Coach with a Panoramic View of the Sport

Published

6 hours ago

May 8, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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Stephen “Breadman” Edwards’ first fighter won a world title. That may be some sort of record.

It’s true. Edwards had never trained a fighter, amateur or pro, before taking on professional novice Julian “J Rock” Williams. On May 11, 2019, Williams wrested the IBF 154-pound world title from Jarrett Hurd. The bout, a lusty skirmish, was in Fairfax, Virginia, near Hurd’s hometown in Maryland, and the previously undefeated Hurd had the crowd in his corner.

In boxing, Stephen Edwards wears two hats. He has a growing reputation as a boxing coach, a hat he will wear on Saturday, May 31, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas when the two fighters that he currently trains, super middleweight Caleb Plant and middleweight Kyrone Davis, display their wares on a show that will air on Amazon Prime Video. Plant, who needs no introduction, figures to have little trouble with his foe in a match conceived as an appetizer to a showdown with Jermall Charlo. Davis, coming off his career-best win, an upset of previously undefeated Elijah Garcia, is in tough against fast-rising Cuban prospect Yoenli Hernandez, a former world amateur champion.

Edwards’ other hat is that of a journalist. His byline appears at “Boxing Scene” in a column where he answers questions from readers.

It’s an eclectic bag of questions that Breadman addresses, ranging from his thoughts on an upcoming fight to his thoughts on one of the legendary prizefighters of olden days. Boxing fans, more so than fans of any other sport, enjoy hashing over fantasy fights between great fighters of different eras. Breadman is very good at this, which isn’t to suggest that his opinions are gospel, merely that he always has something provocative to add to the discourse. Like all good historians, he recognizes that the best history is revisionist history.

“Fighters are constantly mislabled,” he says. “Everyone talks about Joe Louis’s right hand. But if you study him you see that his left hook is every bit as good as his right hand and it’s more sneaky in terms of shock value when it lands.”

Stephen “Breadman” Edwards was born and raised in Philadelphia. His father died when he was three. His maternal grandfather, a Korean War veteran, filled the void. The man was a big boxing fan and the two would watch the fights together on the family television.

Edwards’ nickname dates to his early teen years when he was one of the best basketball players in his neighborhood. The derivation is the 1975 movie “Cornbread, Earl and Me,” starring Laurence Fishburne in his big screen debut. Future NBA All-Star Jamaal Wilkes, fresh out of UCLA, plays Cornbread, a standout high school basketball player who is mistakenly murdered by the police.

Coming out of high school, Breadman had to choose between an academic scholarship at Temple or an athletic scholarship at nearby Lincoln University. He chose the former, intending to major in criminal justice, but didn’t stay in college long. What followed were a succession of jobs including a stint as a city bus driver. To stay fit, he took to working out at the James Shuler Memorial Gym where he sparred with some of the regulars, but he never boxed competitively.

Over the years, Philadelphia has harbored some great boxing coaches. Among those of recent vintage, the names George Benton, Bouie Fisher, Nazeem Richardson, and Bozy Ennis come quickly to mind. Breadman names Richardson and West Coast trainer Virgil Hunter as the men that have influenced him the most.

We are all a product of our times, so it’s no surprise that the best decade of boxing, in Breadman’s estimation, was the 1980s. This was the era of the “Four Kings” with Sugar Ray Leonard arguably standing tallest.

Breadman was a big fan of Leonard and of Leonard’s three-time rival Roberto Duran. “I once purchased a DVD that had all of Roberto Duran’s title defenses on it,” says Edwards. “This was a back before the days of YouTube.”

But Edwards’ interest in the sport goes back much deeper than the 1980s. He recently weighed in on the “Pittsburgh Windmill” Harry Greb whose legend has grown in recent years to the point that some have come to place him above Sugar Ray Robinson on the list of the greatest of all time.

“Greb was a great fighter with a terrific resume, of that there is no doubt,” says Breadman, “but there is no video of him and no one alive ever saw him fight, so where does this train of thought come from?”

Edwards notes that in Harry Greb’s heyday, he wasn’t talked about in the papers as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport. The boxing writers were partial to Benny Leonard who drew comparisons to the venerated Joe Gans.

Among active fighters, Breadman reserves his highest praise for Terence Crawford. “Body punching is a lost art,” he once wrote. “[Crawford] is a great body puncher who starts his knockouts with body punches, but those punches are so subtle they are not fully appreciated.”

If the opening line holds up, Crawford will enter the ring as the underdog when he opposes Canelo Alvarez in September. Crawford, who will enter the ring a few weeks shy of his 38^th birthday, is actually the older fighter, older than Canelo by almost three full years (it doesn’t seem that way since the Mexican redhead has been in the public eye so much longer), and will theoretically be rusty as 13 months will have elapsed since his most recent fight.

Breadman discounts those variables. “Terence is older,” he says, “but has less wear and tear and never looks rusty after a long layoff.” That Crawford will win he has no doubt, an opinion he tweaked after Canelo’s performance against William Scull: “Canelo’s legs are not the same. Bud may even stop him now.”

Edwards has been with Caleb Plant for Plant’s last three fights. Their first collaboration produced a Knockout of the Year candidate. With one ferocious left hook, Plant sent Anthony Dirrell to dreamland. What followed were a 12-round setback to David Benavidez and a ninth-round stoppage of Trevor McCumby.

Breadman keeps a hectic schedule. From Monday through Friday, he’s at the DLX Gym in Las Vegas coaching Caleb Plant and Kyrone Davis. On weekends, he’s back in Philadelphia, checking in on his investment properties and, of greater importance, watching his kids play sports. His 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son are standout all-around athletes.

On those long flights, he has plenty of time to turn on his laptop and stream old fights or perhaps work on his next article. That’s assuming he can stay awake.

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Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

Published

2 days ago

May 6, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Arne's-Almanac-The-Good-the-Bad-and-the-(mostly)-Ugly-A-Weeend-Boxing-Recap-and-More

Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

It’s old news now, but on back-to-back nights on the first weekend of May, there were three fights that finished in the top six snoozefests ever as measured by punch activity. That’s according to CompuBox which has been around for 40 years.

In Times Square, the boxing match between Devin Haney and Jose Carlos Ramirez had the fifth-fewest number of punches thrown, but the main event, Ryan Garcia vs. Rolly Romero, was even more of a snoozefest, landing in third place on this ignoble list.

Those standings would be revised the next night – knocked down a peg when Canelo Alvarez and William Scull combined to throw a historically low 445 punches in their match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 152 by the victorious Canelo who at least pressed the action, unlike Scull (pictured) whose effort reminded this reporter of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” – no, not the movie starring Paul Newman, just the title.

CompuBox numbers, it says here, are best understood as approximations, but no amount of rejiggering can alter the fact that these three fights were stinkers. Making matters worse, these were pay-per-views. If one had bundled the two events, rather than buying each separately, one would have been out $90 bucks.

****

Thankfully, the Sunday card on ESPN from Las Vegas was redemptive. It was just what the sport needed at this moment – entertaining fights to expunge some of the bad odor. In the main go, Naoya Inoue showed why he trails only Shohei Ohtani as the most revered athlete in Japan.

Throughout history, the baby-faced assassin has been a boxing promoter’s dream. It’s no coincidence that down through the ages the most common nickname for a fighter – and by an overwhelming margin — is “Kid.”

And that partly explains Naoya Inoue’s charisma. The guy is 32 years old, but here in America he could pass for 17.

Joey Archer

Joey Archer, who passed away last week at age 87 in Rensselaer, New York, was one of the last links to an era of boxing identified with the nationally televised Friday Night Fights at Madison Square Garden.

Joey Archer

Archer made his debut as an MSG headliner on Feb. 4, 1961, and had 12 more fights at the iconic mid-Manhattan sock palace over the next six years. The final two were world title fights with defending middleweight champion Emile Griffith.

Archer etched his name in the history books in November of 1965 in Pittsburgh where he won a comfortable 10-round decision over Sugar Ray Robinson, sending the greatest fighter of all time into retirement. (At age 45, Robinson was then far past his peak.)

Born and raised in the Bronx, Joey Archer was a cutie; a clever counter-puncher recognized for his defense and ultimately for his granite chin. His style was embedded in his DNA and reinforced by his mentors.

Early in his career, Archer was domiciled in Houston where he was handled by veteran trainer Bill Gore who was then working with world lightweight champion Joe Brown. Gore would ride into the Hall of Fame on the coattails of his most famous fighter, “Will-o’-the Wisp” Willie Pep. If Joey Archer had any thoughts of becoming a banger, Bill Gore would have disabused him of that notion.

In all honesty, Archer’s style would have been box office poison if he had been black. It helped immensely that he was a native New Yorker of Irish stock, albeit the Irish angle didn’t have as much pull as it had several decades earlier. But that observation may not be fair to Archer who was bypassed twice for world title fights after upsetting Hurricane Carter and Dick Tiger.

When he finally caught up with Emile Griffith, the former hat maker wasn’t quite the fighter he had been a few years earlier but Griffith, a two-time Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine and the BWAA and a future first ballot Hall of Famer, was still a hard nut to crack.

Archer went 30 rounds with Griffith, losing two relatively tight decisions and then, although not quite 30 years old, called it quits. He finished 45-4 with 8 KOs and was reportedly never knocked down, yet alone stopped, while answering the bell for 365 rounds. In retirement, he ran two popular taverns with his older brother Jimmy Archer, a former boxer who was Joey’s trainer and manager late in Joey’s career.

May he rest in peace.

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Bombs Away in Las Vegas where Inoue and Espinoza Scored Smashing Triumphs

Published

4 days ago

May 4, 2025

David A. Avila

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Japan’s Naoya “Monster” Inoue banged it out with Mexico’s Ramon Cardenas, survived an early knockdown and pounded out a stoppage win to retain the undisputed super bantamweight world championship on Sunday.

Japan and Mexico delivered for boxing fans again after American stars failed in back-to-back days.

“By watching tonight’s fight, everyone is well aware that I like to brawl,” Inoue said.

Inoue (30-0, 27 KOs), and Cardenas (26-2, 14 KOs) and his wicked left hook, showed the world and 8,474 fans at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas that prizefighting is about punching, not running.

After massive exposure for three days of fights that began in New York City, then moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and then to Nevada, it was the casino capital of the world that delivered what most boxing fans appreciate- pure unadulterated action fights.

Monster Inoue immediately went to work as soon as the opening bell rang with a consistent attack on Cardenas, who very few people knew anything about.

One thing promised by Cardenas’ trainer Joel Diaz was that his fighter “can crack.”

Cardenas proved his trainer’s words truthful when he caught Inoue after a short violent exchange with a short left hook and down went the Japanese champion on his back. The crowd was shocked to its toes.

“I was very surprised,” said Inoue about getting dropped. ““In the first round, I felt I had good distance. It got loose in the second round. From then on, I made sure to not take that punch again.”

Inoue had no trouble getting up, but he did have trouble avoiding some of Cardenas massive blows delivered with evil intentions. Though Inoue did not go down again, a look of total astonishment blanketed his face.

A real fight was happening.

Cardenas, who resembles actor Andy Garcia, was never overly aggressive but kept that left hook of his cocked and ready to launch whenever he saw the moment. There were many moments against the hyper-aggressive Inoue.

Both fighters pack power and both looked to find the right moment. But after Inoue was knocked down by the left hook counter, he discovered a way to eliminate that weapon from Cardenas. Still, the Texas-based fighter had a strong right too.

In the sixth round Inoue opened up with one of his lightning combinations responsible for 10 consecutive knockout wins. Cardenas backed against the ropes and Inoue blasted away with blow after blow. Then suddenly, Cardenas turned Inoue around and had him on the ropes as the Mexican fighter unloaded nasty combinations to the body and head. Fans roared their approval.

“I dreamed about fighting in front of thousands of people in Las Vegas,” said Cardenas. “So, I came to give everything.”

Inoue looked a little surprised and had a slight Mona Lisa grin across his face. In the seventh round, the Japanese four-division world champion seemed ready to attack again full force and launched into the round guns blazing. Cardenas tried to catch Inoue again with counter left hooks but Inoue’s combos rained like deadly hail. Four consecutive rights by Inoue blasted Cardenas almost through the ropes. The referee Tom Taylor ruled it a knockdown. Cardenas beat the count and survived the round.

In the eighth round Inoue looked eager to attack and at the bell launched across the ring and unloaded more blows on Cardenas. A barrage of 14 unanswered blows forced the referee to stop the fight at 45 seconds of round eight for a technical knockout win.

“I knew he was tough,” said Inoue. “Boxing is not that easy.”

Espinoza Wins

WBO featherweight titlist Rafael Espinosa (27-0, 23 KOs) uppercut his way to a knockout win over Edward Vazquez (17-3, 4 KOs) in the seventh round.

“I wanted to fight a game fighter to show what I am capable,” said Espinoza.

Espinosa used the leverage of his six-foot, one-inch height to slice uppercuts under the guard of Vazquez. And when the tall Mexican from Guadalajara targeted the body, it was then that the Texas fighter began to wilt. But he never surrendered.

Though he connected against Espinoza in every round, he was not able to slow down the taller fighter and that allowed the Mexican fighter to unleash a 10-punch barrage including four consecutive uppercuts. The referee stopped the fight at 1:47 of the seventh round.

It was Espinoza’s third title defense.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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