AND so the man Filipino fight fans adore next to no one as their greatest sports hero is climbing the ring again. He is coming back from the shortest retirement from the ring ever, nearly seven months to the day he vowed never to throw again a punch in a pro fight.
But he is Manny Pacquiao and not an impostor. Never mind that the unequalled warrior is a few weeks away from turning thirty eight. He seems as hungry as ever for recognition. He could bleed again for the spotlight.
My bosom friend, Washington-based Martin Bangcaya, described him as the Peter Pan of the Ring—the boy who never grew old, the forever boxer who, it seems to him, is acting very much like an upcoming young fighter still hustling for glory.
Boxing elates Pacquiao. In the ring he is like fish in the water. Once again his style is relentless, venomous and ferocious even as the days have declined and the years have glided away.
From where the seasoned television journalist Jay Ruiz sits, Pacquaio is a living legend. “In training as a boxer and in his legislative duties as a senator, he is highly disciplined and focused,” Jay says.
Sparring with at least three opponents a night, Pacquiao “has regained his wallop,” Ruiz adds, magnetized by the man who has transcended the brutality of the ring and made fighting with a killer’s instinct—a taste for blood—a badge of courage among modern-day gladiators.
Freddie Roach, after going four rounds with the Pacman wearing a pair of boxing mitts, claimed his shoulders hurt absorbing the thunderbolts of left and right straights incessantly thrown at him.
When Roach climbed down the ring, he made a complaint that had an unfamiliar ring to it. “I’ve never had shoulder problems like I do now,” he told the press. That night he went to sleep by applying anti-inflammatories on his shoulders.
“He’s really punching well. He has good power. He is in good position,” he said of the icon.
Pacquiao’s staccato punches sounded like a man repeatedly banging at the door, observed one Filipino sportswriter. That was how hard Pacquiao was throwing his mitts.
“If he carries this over into the ring, I’d be the happiest man ever,” Roach continued. “I think he’s better now than ever.”
The best ring wordsmiths from Manila who are gathered in California have gone through this ritual before, Los Angeles first, and then Las Vegas last.
Now that they are battened down in the Nevada desert awaiting the storm of a fight on Saturday (US time) between their compatriot and the man whose World Boxing Organization welterweight crown is at stake, Jessie Vargas, they are showing less of a fire for him.
Take the traveling Pacquiao bus for an example. In the old days there were more fans, and members of his entourage, than could be seated for the five-hour haul east through the shimmering wasteland of Cal-Neva. Now more than a dozen seats were empty in the 40-seater bus when it left LA.
I sense in this disquiet some apprehensions that nothing of the glittering praises Roach has ever said of Pacquiao could mask. He had long adored his prized gladiator, for whom he has not spoken the last of his hosannas.
What has been left out of the prefight give-and-take was how dangerous an opponent Vargas could be. With a reputation in the ring as “Ruthless” and a dangerous counterpuncher, he has claimed 10 knockout victims and lost only once in 28 pro fights.
He has a 71-inch reach and towers in the ring at 5 feet 10 inches—critical physical advantages that he could use to land big shots and good jabs and extinguish the 5-foot-seven Pacquaio’s speed and power.
But if some of the denizens along cauliflower row could be believed, Pacquiao would demonstrate the clinical accuracy of a puncher who could throw a punch like a skilled neurosurgeon uses a scalpel.
“It’s the power, the footwork, the speed,” Roach said. Pacquiao, with this combination, could choreograph this fight with his calculated ferocity—one that in the past had allowed him to inflict endless punishment on his foes.
ESPN has listed five of Pacquiao’s finest wins. Against Miguel Cotto, he inflicted a punishing assault; against Oscar de la Hoya, he retired the “Pretty Boy” in 11; against Juan Manuel Marquez, his blurring hand speed gave him a slim 114-113 edge; against Barrera, he roundly outgunned him; and against Eric Morales, he avenged a controversial loss in destructive fashion.
I hasten to add his stunning second-round knockout of Briton Ricky Hatton in 2009 at the MGM Grand. I was seated next to a rowdy British fan who failed to consume a beer in can in his trembling hands when Pacquiao floored Hatton spread-eagled on the mat after a one-sided opening round.
How well does Vargas match up with Pacquiao? ESPN gives Pacquiao the edge in power, experience, speed, durability, tenacity, stamina, versatility and corners. The TV Sports Channel gives Vargas defense, technique, current form and wild card.
Make mine Pacquiao.