Prioritize the pros, Eumir

It’s high time for Eumir Marcial to prioritize his professional career.

Following his scintillating one-punch, third-round knockout of Ulises Huerta in Temecula, California, Marcial attempted to take the first available flight out of Los Angeles International for Nagoya, Japan, where Team Philippines is battling for medals in the 20th Asian Games.

He had been given the go-signal by his American promoter Sean Gibbons since “he is on vacation” provided that he gets back in training towards the end of the year in preparation for a big fight in early-2027.

But Marcial and the Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines (ABAP) made a last-minute decision not to proceed given that the Filipino puncher will have to take a trans-Pacific 15-hour flight just to get to Japan and fight the following day.

Gibbons, who signed Marcial to a contract almost six years ago, thus boosted his win-loss-draw record to 8-0-0 with five knockouts.

A fight in January next year is on the pipeline, leaving Marcial with no other choice but to abandon plans of making it up with the Philippine contingent for the Asian Indoor Martial Arts Games (AIMAG) in Saudi Arabia in December.

The ABAP had earlier declared that Marcial will instead represent the country in the AIMAG after the difficult decision of skipping Nagoya.

But as far as Gibbons is concerned, it ain’t gonna happen.

I am on the same page with Gibbons on this one.

Marcial has to accept that he can no longer dabble as a pro and a boxer for Olympic-style fighting.

By doing so the last six years, his pro career has taken a massive hit in terms of activity. It has even stagnated.

Imagine, since turning pro in Los Angeles in December 2000, Marcial has fought a total of eight times.

Not that Marcial has stopped being nationalistic.

He represented the Philippines in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics where he took a bronze medal. During the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, he placed second overall.

But what really stood out was his early exit in the 2024 Paris Olympics simply because he was no longer fighting at his natural weight.

The Tokyo bronze was won at middleweight (75 kilograms). And while he bagged a silver medal in the Hangzhou Asiad, it revealed that Marcial was not being truly effective fighting outside the middleweight class.

He fought in Hangzhou as a light-heavyweight (80 kilograms) and weighed the same in Paris.

The Olympics and the Asian Games have scrapped the 75 kilogram division, leaving Marcial with no other option but to bulk up and campaign at light-heavy every time he dons the national colors.

But because of the big difference in weight, Marcial appears not as strong as he was at middleweight and his build is too small for those who regularly fight as light-heavyweights.

And with Gibbons finally putting his foot down, Marcial has to focus on his pro career as a world title shot is being planned for him next year.

Once again, Marcial can’t have his cake and eat it, too.