Pacquiao and his websites

If Manny Pacquiao were a thing, he would have a been a rope. It seems to me that a lot of people loves to play tug of war for him. Take for example his promotions, Manny Pacquiao became the subject of the tug of war between Top Rank's Bob Arum and Golden Boy's De la Hoya. There even came a point that the case went to the courts. In the end, Pacquiao stayed with Arum.

The second incident is between local networks. Pacquiao was and is still being coveted by ABS-CBN and the Philippine's largest network almost had Pacquiao. Manny remained with Solar Sports and his fights are televised at GMA network.

There was also an instance that he was rumored to be falling for a girl and wife Jinky was so jealous about it. Well, the wife won this rumored one-sided "tug of war".

It is not surprising to see that Manny Pacquiao is now the subject of another virtual tug of war. Now, it is in the cyberspace. Years before when Manny was not as famous as he is now, a boxing fanatic named Dong Secuya launched a website that showcases the exploits of Filipino boxers. The website had a nickname of Pacland, short Pacman's land. This site was where fans from around the globe converge and learn more about their boxing hero and interact with each other. Dong Secuya worked so hard to make the site relevant and interesting not only to Pinoy fight fans but also fans from other countries. The site's popularity grew as fast as Manny Pacquiao's ascent to super stardom.

Fast forward 2011, Manny Pacquiao is now a congressman, an 8-division champ, and a businessman with various interests. He now has countless of consultants and advisers. He became a top endorsers of products and itself a very sellable product. Pacquiao became a commodity. Eventually his team realized that it is time to make an official Manny Pacquiao website. The in-charge of this project is Timothy Sladeck. Sladeck launched a site mpboxing.com which was eventually renamed as mp8.ph. It has practically the same goals as Pacland. Since it was the site endorsed by Manny himself, mp8.ph has exclusive footages and articles about the Pinoy boxing hero.

At first Pacland and Sladeck's site co-existed. Until one day, the sites were supposed to be consolidated as Secuya's mannypacquiao.ph becomes the official web domain of Pacquiao. The merge was not harmonious and it prompted Secuya to drop the old domain and create a new one in pinoygreats.com. 

As this development happened, the fans were also divided on their stand about the issue. I can see in the forum that an annoying word war is happening. People try to put down the other side. It is quite sad to see how a site like Pacland disintegrated into a virtual war zone.

In a different light, it is quite funny to see people taking this issue seriously. Maybe there are so many feelings that were hurt along the way that wounds are deeper than I thought. It is even odd that some are even waiting for Manny to settle this problem.  I do not know but I think Pacquiao is not a good referee. He hates to see people hurt and I do not like that idea of him wasting his energies trying to appease some people. 

Let Manny do what he does best, which is fight in the ring. For the business side, let the advisers handle it.  It's too much of a headache and it probably hurts more than an uppercut to the chin by a heavy weight. Pacquiao is not a rope, and it is time to let go.  ;)