CHICAGO - After working on a championship card in Japan this past weekend, licensed international boxing judge Edward Ligas was hunting for Royce chocolates to bring home to his family back in Cebu.
Unfortunately, the popular sweet treat had sold out.
What he found instead was trouble he didn't ask for.
At around 1:30 pm, Ligas, who has been licensed by the Games and Amusements Board (GAB) for 20 years and credentialed by the WBO and the IBF for 18, said he was accosted by boxer John Riel Casimero and his brother Jayson at the Narita international airport.
READ Casimero hit with one-year ban by Japan Boxing Commission
Not in the mood for early Christmas greetings, the Casimero brothers were angry, menacing.
Ligas hosts a sports segment with lawyer Raphil Banoc at radio station dyHP and he also anchors a sports and politics show at dyLa in Cebu.
The Casimero brothers accused Ligas of "spreading lies" and "attacking them."
JBC PUNCHES BACK.
At that time of the confrontation, the siblings thought John Riel was suspended by the Japan Boxing Commission (JBC) for six months and they believed, falsely, that Ligas pushed for it.
Little did the Casimeros know that the JBC is independent from the GAB. And it wasn't until they landed in the Philippines when they found out that the suspension was one year.
"John Riel kept charging and I was sure he was going to throw punches at me. If not for a certain Ryan in his entourage, I would have gotten knocked out," Ligas, 58, told me in a telephone interview.
Apparently, John Riel was incensed that his sexual and child support cases have also been discussed in Ligas' shows.
As the Casimero brothers' became increasingly volatile, Ligas kept reminding them that they are all under the GAB umbrella and should act accordingly as professionals.
Ligas, who once worked as nationwide Urban Poor commissioner under former President Joseph Estrada, can pull more strings than a guitar. He is thinking of filing a complaint before the JBC which has jurisdiction over the attempted mauling.
ADDITIONAL INQUIRY
The GAB should look into this, too. One of its own was under fire, alone and outnumbered, against at least two guys the GAB gave licenses to.
The near-scuffle at Narita was a culmination of a nightmare weekend for John Riel.
He badly missed weight, drawing the ire of his own promoter. Now unable to fight in Japan for the next 12 months, the suspension clouds his dream of fighting Naoya Inoue.
"If you can't keep the weight, you're out. There are several candidates for Inoue's next match. Casimero is not on the list," Naoye's manager, Hideyuki Ohashi, Naoya's manager, said in statement which described John Riel "as irresponsible and unprofessional."
Had he not left Manny Pacquiao Promotions, John Riel would have fought 'The Monster' two years ago. That mega fight that MP president Sean Gibbons arranged would have paid Casimero $2 million after all deductions.
Is Inoue-Casimero still doable?
Yes, but unlikely without the extremely connected and influential Gibbons making the deal.
Casimero is 35 and the clock is not ticking backwards.
It's not too late but the pride of Ormoc needs to change one thing.
Everything.
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