Phl boxing’s growing problem

Over the past few weeks, Philippine boxing was flooded with reports concerning what’s down the road for eight-division legend Manny Pacquiao.

First came a video of Pacquiao himself announcing that his next fight will be held on 24 January 2026. No exact venue was mentioned and the opponent wasn’t named although many feel that it would be Rolando Romero.

Then some days later, a release was fed to just a few media outlets (excluding this paper), saying that Pacquiao was reuniting with fellow Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum and former right-hand man Mike Koncz for a clash with Vasyl Lomachenko, who has retired.

The release was reported by a giant TV network and got picked up by outlets — a lot of them vloggers prioritizing sheer content over quality — obviously unaware of boxing’s wheeling and dealing.

So, if you ask a casual fight fan right now about Pacquiao, he might say that the Gensan southpaw is facing Lomachenko, and not Romero, because that’s what they watched online from some guy who was probably wearing a torn and ratty boxer brief underneath his makeshift desk.

Not saying that every vlogger fits this description but a lot of them do. The vast majority, I guess.

The sad thing is that boxing fans (mostly Filipinos) tend to rely on information from them when in fact what they report come from stories or articles or even posts made by legit writers who cover the fight game here and overseas, reporters who have direct contact with the genuine foreign and local promoters, matchmakers, managers, trainers, fighters and every major stakeholder of the sport.

They also have this attitude of creating trouble among the community by sowing intrigue.

Anyway, I guess this is how it is nowadays.

Even outside the world of sports, people tend to turn to vloggers for content instead of mainstream media.

And this is a dangerous thing because they don’t act responsibly and they believe that they are not accountable.

No wonder that in the States, only a very small number of content creators have been kinda accepted as US fight fans still go to the regular beat writers for information about a certain fighter’s next fight.

A few years ago, I tried my hand at doing what the vloggers are doing.

I got to speak with Pacquiao — one-on-one — at his posh Makati residence for an hour or so discussing his next fight.

I was giddy with excitement over what it would generate online once it comes out, thinking that it would be trending in no time.

But just a couple hours after I posted it, vloggers from here and abroad began posting that exclusive video as though they were the ones who did the interview.

There was no mention of where they picked it up. I looked like a fool.

It was at that moment I knew I got %#@&*.

That’s how damaging they are. No wonder they adore the term “viral.”

Because that’s what they are: Infectious.