There’s a follow-up to the story I posted last week regarding Filipino referee Carlos Padilla and his admission to having cheated twice to get countryman Manny Pacquiao the win in a 2000 WBC international super bantamweight title fight with Australia’s Nedal Hussein [Wait, What? HOF Ref Admits to Cheating to Help Manny Pacquiao Win - http://www.fighthype.com/news/article45390.html].
The WBC and its president Mauricio Sulaiman were dragged, kicking and screaming, into making some sort of statement regarding the issue. Apparently, deleting the video from their YouTube channel where Padilla made the laughing admission of guilt was NOT enough for us jerks and assholes who wanted this addressed.
“The World Boxing Council has established a special panel to review the situation about Legendary Referee Carlos Padilla with regards to some comments during an interview published by The WBC a few days ago,” Sulaiman said via press release, two days after my article was published here at FightHype.com.
“We have received a sensitive letter from Mr. Padilla´s daughter Suzy which is found in this release as she has addressed it to the boxing Community of the world. The letter is self-explanatory and I, as President of The WBC, as well as a human being who has known Mr. Padilla since I was 10 years old, I can certainly empathize with Suzy and the contents of her letter to the boxing Community.
I will personally follow the process in the meantime, The WBC will not make any further public comments.”
So, there. Sulaiman is on the case. Justice is sure to be forthcoming. Ahem.
In daughter Suzy Padilla Tuano’s “sensitive” letter, addressed to “The boxing community of the world,” the eldest child of six writes that her father is an "88 year old man who is just that - old and aging.” and that, "despite the fact that he has been living in the United States for decades, English remains his 2nd language. Communications can be misconstrued and well-intentioned words can be misinterpreted.”
Chalking the admission of impropriety up to a miscommunication/lost in translation mistake, Tuano says that this current situation comes entirely from something “taken out of context."
She goes on to defend her father’s honor and integrity and say that his “contributions to the boxing community” have earned him some “well-deserved consideration” in this matter.
"He does not need controversies at this very late stage in his life,” Tuano concludes.
So, now we have the dilemma of either moving towards justice at the expense of an old man’s hurt feelings or letting an injustice stand and perpetuate the victimization of an honest, earnest fighter who had his career ruined by a pair of admitted cheats. If you love boxing and respect fighters, the choice should be an obvious one.
It’s a good thing that the honorable Mauricio Sulaiman is on the case. We all know the right thing will be done in the best interest of the sport. Just kidding. Sulaiman ain’t gonna do squat about this and has already swept it under the carpet, hoping that the public and the media will forget about it. To some, like Sulaiman and his crew, honor is much more about saving face than righting wrongs.