Bleacher Talk

Bleacher Talk May 27, 2007 Pistons and Spurs Show If you aren't happy with the current match-ups of the NBA Playoffs, blame it on the Golden State Warriors. They were the ones who prevented us from watching a Dallas-San Antonio series. You can also add Detroit to the blame list for doing everything almost effortlessly, getting the job done even if they had to go through a scare against the Bulls. The Pistons even had the luxury of playing lousy ball and still came out on top over Cleveland in their ongoing series. In sum, after a high-octane first two rounds of the playoffs, it looks like the excitement, following and hype being produced by the Spurs-Jazz and Pistons-Cavs series isn't up there as expected. And so I ask. Are the playoffs getting “boring?” Hmmm. A San Antonio–Phoenix clash would've been a better conference finals match-up, di ba? And in a way, the playoffs set-up wasn't “fair” to the Bulls who ended up facing the Pistons so early. Thus, the jury is out on

Bleacher Talk May 21, 2007 What’s Up Cebu Basketball? What’s happening to local basketball? As I write this, I feel a sense of de ja vu as I’ve decided to write about a topic that I also discussed around a year ago today when I was worried about the state of local basketball. Talking about local basketball these days brings up a mix of questions, kudos and concerns. If you take the viewpoint of one who has followed the local basketball scene since the 70’s, you can’t help but be worried. Why? If you talk about local ball today, the only topic to discuss is collegiate basketball. The CESAFI and the Partners Cup series remain to be the only leagues “alive.” But both are essentially one and the same set of teams using different league names or “titles.” I take my hats off to CESAFI Commissioner Boy Tiukinhoy and lawyer-sportsman Merong Estenzo for doing their share of putting up a league other than the CESAFI. But I just can’t help but say that there’s something missing in local ball: the

Bleacher Talk May 13, 2007 What’s Next for Boom Boom? When “The World Awaits” came to a close, more questions than answers were raised. Was that it? We all waited for this? Where was the promise of explosions that had the world waiting? Did Mayweather deserve to win/lose? And on and on and on. But we don’t want to dwell on these, do we? There’s a more important question that needs to be answered and it doesn’t even deal with the uneventful main event. We’re talking about the best fight of the night! We’re talking about one of our very own. What’s next for Rey “Boom Boom” Bautista? Is he for real? Is he ready for that world title fight? Is he still being fed patsies? Will he be the next world champ this year? Don’t look now, but the Philippines waited for May 6 to have their questions answered, and I’m not sure if anyone was disappointed with what they saw. Boom Boom Bautista is for real, and he’s the next big thing to come out of Philippine boxing. Believe it or not. I have to admit th

Bleacher Talk May 6, 2007 Worth the Wait? When an event says that the world awaits it, then it’s got to be something really big. And so when “Pretty Boy” Floyd Mayweather and Oscar “Golden Boy” de la Hoya clash in the year’s biggest fight at around noon today, all of us boxing fans will finally get to watch what we’ve been waiting for ever since the fight was announced. At the end of the day, the big question that we’d like to ask is if it was all worth the wait. But before anything else, we ought to issue a warning. Just because the event is called “The World Awaits,” don’t expect the fight to be a top candidate for “fight of the year” or to become the most talked about fight in boxing history. Let’s discuss why. For starters, the fight is not going to be a “bakbakan” or rumble that fight fans always look forward to when two giants clash on top of the ring in the same way that Manny Pacquiao and Erik Morales slugged it out in three episodes. It’s not going to be like the Juan Manuel M