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By Eddie G. Alinea, Contributor
HAD then-world chess champion Bobby Fischer
agreed to play Russian Grandmaster Anatoly Karpov in 1975 with the
former’s title at stake, Filipino sports fans wouldn’t have had
the opportunity to witness the world heavyweight championship
fight between Muhammad Ali and challenger Joe Frazier.
Florencio Campomanes, the former International
Chess Federation (FIDE) president, said Fischer’s refusal to go on
with the match opened the gate for the government to instead
negotiate to bring to Manila Ali and Frazier for the fight dubbed as
the “Thrilla In Manila.”
“Yes, had Bobby [Fischer] consented to proceed
with the title match against Tolya [Karpov], there could not have
been an Ali-Frazier fight which was later adjudged one of the best
fights of the last century,” Campomanes told the Manila Times in a
telephone interview a day after news spread that the 64-year-old
Fischer died of a kidney disease in Reykjavik, Iceland, site of his
world championship triumph over Soviet titleholder Boris Spassky in
1972.
Campomanes, known as Campo or Pocamps to friends
in both the local and international chess scenes, disclosed that
earlier before that year, he succeeded in his bid with FIDE what
could have been another classic match that would have etched the
country’s name as a sports capital of the world.
Campomanes, who served as FIDE president for 13
years from 1982 when he was elected in Lucerne, Switzerland, said he
won the bid after assuring the federation of a $5-million total
purse.
Campomanes, a former political science lecturer
at the University of the Philippines, disclosed that Fischer, a
frequent Philippine visitor even when he was still not yet the world
champ, declined when only one of his demands was granted by
FIDE—that of having an unlimited number of games with the first
player to score 10 wins bringing home the crown.
“After I failed to bring back here Tolya,
then-President Ferdinand Marcos directed the late Games and
Amusement Board Chairman Louie Tabuena to bring here Ali and
Frazier,” he recalled. “I remember Tabuena saying ‘if
Campomanes and chess can bring Fischer and Karpov here at $5
million, I can also bring Ali and Frazier here at the same
amount,’” Campomanes said.
The rest, of course, is history. Where chess
failed, boxing succeeded. The fight went on in what earned the
Philippines the honors chess would have given it,” the former FIDE
top man who is still recovering from an injury suffered in a
vehicular accident early last year, related.
The aborted world chess championship match led
FIDE to decide Fischer in default and award the championship to
Karpov, who three years after that in 1978 successfully defended the
crown against challenger Viktor Korchnoi of Switzerland in Baguio
City.
Campomanes said he tried to convince Fischer to
revive his playing career in Manila in a series of attempts the next
six years until 1981, the year he last saw his long-time friend.
In 1979 while in Washington D.C., Campomanes
again initially succeeded in getting Fischer’s approval to face
Karpov in what was billed as the “World Professional Chess
Championship.”
But like the 1975 escapade, the plan did not
push through after the Russian chess federation disapproved it
because of the absence of professional chess in that country.
Two years later, a plan to pit the chess wizard
against a Chinese player who swam from the mainland to Hong Kong
with a $.5-million prize also fizzled out after the fickle-minded
Fischer disagreed.
“What a pity really because all those years, I
never ran out of sponsors who would invest their money on chess for
as long as the project involved Bobby like Alfred Ramos of the
National Book Store, Frank Alba of Prudential Bank, Bombie Trinidad
and Rey Dizon,” Campo recalled.
“But all those years that Bobby and I been
together since I brought him here in 1967 when he was not yet famous
and all the good and bad things said and written about him, what I
can honestly attest to is that he was a good and honest man, who
have contributed a lot in making chess a popular sport now,
especially among the world’s youths,” said Campomanes.
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