CHICAGO - Thankfully, mercifully, the Meralco Bolts cut the power off on the unwatchable soap opera starring Ismael Romero.
The Bolts announced on Saturday that the living, breathing poster man-child for bad behavior will no longer be their import to the upcoming PBA Season 50 Commissioner’s Cup.
Good riddance.
READ Meralco parts ways with Ismael Romero after Dubai incident
The G-League veteran was a hybrid power forward, 6-foot-9 and 220lbs. He was also, sadly, a pile of hot temper.
A terrific rebounder, Romero leapt out of the headlines last January when he turned into a poor Bruce Lee impersonator and kicked Nick Demusis twice at a Dubai tournament.
When his scheduled participation this conference was met with stiff resistance, a Meralco team official, who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity, defended Romero like a tenacious defense attorney.
NOT HIS FAULT.
Romero was a victim who only retaliated when bullied, the official insisted.
Pressed about potential sanctions for an alleged assault clearly caught on camera, the official said the PBA had “no jurisdiction.”
I was also told that the team was then attempting to help the now-exiled Romero in the reported financial settlement of the transgression.
No surprise there. The Bolts might not necessarily be experts on good PR but their top brass, on its core, are wonderful people.
To me, though, the desire to cling on to Romero like a starstruck lover had plenty to do with the difficulty of hiring a replacement import and the logistics it entailed.
That one was a surprise. With electricity being a lucrative, if not monopolized, commodity you’d think there’s enough budget to put out a fire.
WEIRD TIMING.
Anyway, why ditch the 34-year old Romero now after all the energy the franchise expended in trying to keep him?
And why pull the plug just days before the start of the Commissioner’s Cup?
I reached out to the Meralco official whom I gave an ear to when the Romero crisis was burning.
He chose not to respond.
Let’s just consider it a brownout in the relationship, which is sad because real friendships are supposed to shine, not dim, in the worst of times.
I will miss Romero in the sense that it would have been fun to find out how tough he really was against rough riders such the equally hot-tempered Calvin Abueva and the lovable human bulldozer Beau Belga.
I also miss Norman Black running a fan-friendly, media transparent show at Meralco.
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