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SOME
fights are brawls, some are frays; at least what they
lack in art they make up in courage. Some fights are
like pas de deux where the fighters seem to be saving
themselves for any fight but the one they are in. This
is a total waste of money but not of time; as much fun
can be had jeering the fighters as one would have had
cheering them if they had as much fight in them as they
all too evidently lack.
But on
Sunday, June 29, at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Manny
“Pacman” Pacquiao went to town for his country, God and,
last, himself. And that it will be one of the most
memorable fights in the history of the sweet science was
due as much to the fight Pacquiao put on as the one
David Diaz put out.
The
outright blind who had to follow the fight through the
misguided and vocabulary-challenged commentary of the
lovable but all-too-perennial Quinito Henson will have
gotten a completely different understanding of what
actually transpired that fateful noon when boxing was
elevated from pummeling through pugilistic art to pure
sportsmanship. For, far from jabbing constantly to keep
a healthy distance between himself and his redoubtable
opponent, Manny Pacquiao waded into the punching circle
of his larger opponent’s powerful reach to deliver
snapping lefts to Diaz’s head and heaving rights to his
body with thudding uppercuts to his flanks; exposed to
the American boxer’s all-too-few but potentially fatal
counterpunches.
Repeatedly, the fight was suspended; the first time to
check if the gash above Diaz’s right eye had come
illegally from a head butt or the laces on Pacquiao’s
gloves. But it had come clean, and it had cut wide and
deep from the blunt force trauma of Pacquiao’s thickly
gloved but crushing knuckles. The flesh had split open
like an overripe fruit. Thereafter, the fight was
repeatedly stopped as boxing officials called Diaz to
the side to check if the copiously bleeding cut above
his eye warranted an early end to the fight. Not that
Diaz had stopped to worry the wound; on the contrary, he
gave it only perfunctory attention from time to time.
Each
time Diaz returned to the fight for more punishment, to
the incredulous eyes of audiences around the world who
cheered less and less, and never jeered at all, as they
watched, thunderstruck.
As the
fight progressed, the audience cheered less and watched,
thunderstruck, at what was unfolding before their eyes.
Not a parlous fight, where the outcome favoring Pacquiao
was ever in doubt. No, they were watching courage meet
daring, durability enduring punishment, persistence
straining patience and wearing out strength, to the
point of open admiration—as Pacquiao and Diaz could not
stop themselves from occasionally touching gloves in
mutual respect as the bell parted them for yet another
round.
That
went on until a still-strong Diaz lowered his head in
the middle of the ninth round just as a still-powerful
Pacquiao was lifting his iron fist for an uppercut.
That was
when durability cracked at the glancing but all-too-
solid impact of a ton of bricks. To the astonishment of
Diaz and Pacquiao himself, the blow knocked Diaz cold,
but not out. Everyone saw Diaz’s face slam against the
canvass, the flesh quivering like Jell-O, but his eyes
wide open in wonder.
Pacquiao
turned around, raised both arms in triumph, then
swiveled unaccountably back to his fallen opponent.
Using both gloved hands, Pacquiao tried to pull up Diaz
by his arm, until boxing officials pushed him away.
What did
Manny want to do, prop up Diaz and punch him again? But
if Diaz got back on his feet, he wouldn’t go down again,
as Manny, nearing exhaustion from wearing down granite,
would be the first to acknowledge.
And it
didn’t look that way at all. It was just the spontaneity
of courage reaching out to valor: Two men, one faith,
both citizens of the small and exclusive republic of
guts and grit; knowing that, in a fight like this,
between men like them, defeat does not diminish and
victory honors both.
Pushed
out of the way as efforts were made to revive Diaz and
measure the damage he had suffered, Pacquiao rushed to
his corner, sliding to his knees, and buried his face on
the padded corner, his shoulders heaving, deep in
prayer. Then he rose up—and up still—stepping on the
ropes until he stood above his handlers—and then—no, not
yet spreading his arms in victory, but making the sign
of the cross.
This was
the man who, when asked before his earlier fight with
Erik Morales what he had prayed for, said with disarming
simplicity, “For both of us, that neither of us shall be
badly hurt.”
A man
can be honored by the quality of his enemy; defeat
vindicated by the fight that was given, and victory
enhanced by the clarity and cleanliness of its
achievement. That is when victory is covered, and defeat
is erased, in glory. This was such a time.
On
Sunday, Manny Pacquiao ceased to be just a successful
Filipino fighter. He became a world champion in the
deepest sense of the word. |
