It was a sunny June morning in 2002 and the Memphis International Airport was busier than usual. The night before, heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis had knocked out Mike Tyson in a fight that was the highest grossing pay-per-view event in history at the time.
As long lines of fans and media members shuffled slowly toward the departure gates, a slender boyish-looking man sat alone, a tiny suitcase at his feet, unrecognized by the crush of travelers. He too had fought the previous evening, savagely knocking out Jorge Eliecer Julio on the undercard, but Manny Pacquiao remained anonymous among the rush of humanity, just another guy waiting for a plane.
Flash forward to the early hours of Nov. 15, 2009, as a gathering of approximately 5,000 revelers at the Mandalay Bay Event Center waited patiently for their hero to arrive. And when Pacquiao bounded onto the stage and launched into an ass-kicking version of “La Bamba,” the crowd went bananas.
If it wasn’t for the bandage wrapped around his head, partially hidden by the small fedora he wore at a rakish angle, you wouldn’t have known that just a few hours earlier Pacquiao had engaged in a brutal prizefight with Miguel Cotto. The bruises under his eye had almost disappeared. Maybe the lights and makeup had something to do with it.
This wasn’t Rinty Monaghan belting out “Danny Boy” in the ring after a fight. It was a full-blown production, complete with flashing lights, a crackerjack band and dancing girls.
The juxtaposition of the evening’s two events was deliciously surreal. As promised, Pacquiao sang eight songs, some in Tagalog and some in English – “So everybody can understand" – ranging from up-tempo rockers to the schmaltzy ballads Filipinos adore.
When he segued into “Sometimes When We Touch,” the Dan Hill tune he sang on the Jimmy Kimmel Live a few weeks before the fight, the rapturous squeals from the female members of the audience almost drowned out the band.
Boxing’s latest savior was celebrating his 50th victory in his own unique manner. And if he didn’t sing anywhere near as well as he fights, nobody cared. They just wanted to be part of the incredible thrill ride that is Manny Pacquiao, a ride that has taken him from abject poverty in an Asian backwater to the cover of Time magazine and the bright lights of Las Vegas.
Who could have imagined on that long-ago Sunday morning in Memphis that such a thing was possible? Maybe not even Pacquiao dared to dream so spectacularly.
Today he is the centerpiece of a growing economic and political empire, an international personality whose life and exploits have eclipsed the sports page and become the stuff of legend.
Even for the Cotto fight, seen by many as his most difficult challenge to date, Pacquiao’s business obligations meant a helter-skelter training camp of barely eight weeks. Nonetheless, he was in magnificent physical condition and seemed as full of energy in the final round as he was in the first.
By the time Pacquiao leapt forward and landed his final two punches of the night, referee Kenny Bayless was looking for the opportunity to stop the fight. When Pacquiao gave it to him, poor Cotto was mercifully lowered from the cross, and the Manny Pacquiao bandwagon rolled on.
As improbable as it all seemed seven years ago in Memphis, it’s now possible to look back at what’s happened. See how all the pieces of this man and the history of his people dovetailed together to create the international phenomenon he has become.
Of course, none of the incredible fame and fortune would have been possible if Pacquiao weren’t a great fighter. That’s the foundation of everything. But it should not be forgotten that he comes from ancient warrior stock. This is something that is often overlooked by contemporary observers, who forget that when Ferdinand Magellan took on Filipino chief Lapu-Lapu in the Battle of Mactan, it was the Portuguese explorer who ended up dead, riddled with poisonous arrows.
Centuries of oppression under the thumb of foreign invaders and corrupt leaders have not taken away the fighting spirit of the Filipino people. It has instead been sharpened by the kind of desperation that leads to a what-have-got-to-lose mentality. And that’s exactly the mindset Pacquiao needs to fight with the passion that has carried him to unprecedented success.
True, he’s many years and many millions of dollars away from his boyhood days hustling cigarettes on the street. But those formative years, the years of not knowing for sure where the next meal was coming from, molded the boy who became the man who now has the boxing world in the palm of his hands.
Pacquiao’s sunny disposition and humble demeanor, which contrast so vividly with his merciless ferocity inside the ring, is also a product of his roots. Among Filipinos, humility and hospitality are the most admired traits, and when Pacquiao told reporters at the postfight press conference that he thought of himself as an “ordinary fighter,” he wasn’t kidding.
Sure, he knows he’s much more than that. But it took a blatant prod from trainer Freddie Roach for him to admit as much, and even then Pacquiao acquiesced in a way that paid homage to the teacher not the student.
“You’re not ordinary,” said Roach.
“Sorry, Master,” Pacquiao replied, flashing a grin of Cheshire Cat proportions.
Pacquiao is more than happy to leave the talking to Roach, especially when it comes to prefight trash talk. Many of his opponents have found him as endearing as the rest of us do – before the bell rang anyway. That was the case leading up to his fight against Joshua Clottey on Saturday at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Roach predicted a knockout, Pacquiao has been polite.
That undoubtedly would be the formula even for what seems to be an inevitable showdown with Floyd Mayweather Jr., which also presumably would present unusual challenges in the ring. But before we plunge headlong into the future, let’s pause briefly and try to absorb everything that the Pacquiao juggernaut has wrought to date.
With each victory Pacquiao’s legend grows, but the massacre of Cotto was an outcome that many critics had considered highly unlikely.
“Wait until Pacquiao gets hit by a full-fledged 147-pounder,” said the nonbelievers. “The first time Cotto nails him with his left hook it will be over.”
Well, Pacquiao did get hit quite a bit in the early rounds, and Cotto’s frightening left hook found the mark more than once. But Pacquiao just blinked and continued to do his thing. Later, he revealed to ESPN’s Brian Kenny that Cotto’s punches had indeed hurt, but that he “pretended” that they had not.
That Pacquiao is eager to share his success with his people, while remaining one of them, is an essential ingredient in the mix that creates the magic. When he says he wants to put on a good fight to “make the people happy,” it sets him apart from so many sporting prima donnas who typically have more selfish motives behind their striving.
The commercial spin-offs from Pacquiao’s Hall of Fame boxing career now consume the majority of his time and energy. Dire predictions that his career will be derailed by his lifestyle and/or outside interests have been a staple of media coverage since the beginning of his rise to prominence.
His singing career is a relatively small part of his extracurricular activities. Check out the number of Pacquiao commercials on YouTube. The variety of products he endorses seem endless – Nike, San Miguel Beer, McDonald’s, Talk ‘N Text, Head and Shoulders dandruff shampoo, Magnolia dairy products – you name it, Pacquiao has probably plugged it.
Then there are the movies. Pacquiao has appeared in seven movies since 2000, starting in secondary roles and graduating to leading man in 2005’s Lisensyadond Kamao, in which he played a boxer whose mother and sister are kidnapped by thugs while he’s training for the big fight. In 2008’s Anak ng Kumander, Pacquiao was a rebel hiding out in the mountains with a band of men, wreaking havoc on the corrupt officials who oppressed the people.
There is a cornball charm to these low-budget Filipino productions, and Pacquiao just might of have hit his stride with his latest effort, Wapakman. In this flick, he’s a superhero, complete with a cheesy red costume and numerous superpowers.
While one must suspend all disbelief in order to enjoy such guilty pleasures, in the boxing ring the critics have retreated, their skepticism replaced by incredulity.
And if the bean counters insist a fighter is to be measured by the amount of money he generates, the extraordinary pay-per-view buy rate for the Cotto fight puts Pacquiao at the elite level. According to HBO, the fight sold approximately 1.25 million pay-per-views, roughly 200,000 more than the Mayweather-Juan Manuel Marquez fight in September. Moreover, the live gate was $8.84-million, which also topped Mayweather-Marquez by around $2-million.
Many people who care about him wish that Pacquiao would slow down, stop spreading himself so thin, and abandon his political aspirations. But that’s not about to happen, not yet anyway. Right now, the Pac-Man Express is going so fast, he couldn’t get off if he wanted.
Whether the next stop is Floyd Mayweather, Pacquiao’s destiny is rushing headlong into the unknown—all we can do is hold on tight and enjoy the trip.
David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer
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