Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao hopes to unearth the next Chinese world
champion and help grow the sport with an academy in the largely
untapped country.
The 38-year-old, who controversially lost his World Boxing
Organization (WBO) welterweight title to Australian Jeff Horn in July,
was in Beijing this week.
He and Chinese sports-development firm Dancing Sports held a signing
ceremony that included plans to build a Manny Pacquiao International
Boxing Academy in the capital, the company said.
Zhou Wenxin, chairman of Dancing Sports, said their tie-up would deepen Chinese-Philippine relations in boxing and beyond.
The academy will draft in coaches from abroad to help develop Chinese
boxing, which has never had a truly world-class fighter. There is no
public timeline for when it will be built.
China’s most famous boxer, Zou Shiming, lost his WBO flyweight belt
when he was knocked out by Japan’s unfancied Sho Kimura in his first
defence in July.
When Pacquiao’s plans for China were first announced in 2014, he said
that he believed the partnership could help thaw frosty ties between
the Philippines and China, who were engaged in a territorial maritime
dispute in the South China Sea.
Relations have since improved considerably under current Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.
At the time, Pacquiao defended the decision to open a boxing academy in China instead of his own country.
“In the Philippines we don’t have a problem (producing good boxers),”
said Pacquiao, a hero in his home country and also a senator.
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Thursday, 7 December 2017
Pacquiao begins search for Chinese boxing stars
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