Despite losing his welterweight championship to Australian Jeff Horn, a loss the World Boxing Organization said was legitimate after reviewing the fight, Manny Pacquiao says he still wants to keep fighting until his passion for boxing is gone.
Indeed, the present generations of Filipinos are very lucky to witness the boxing career of Pacquiao. He could very well be one of the greatest boxers of all time. Even though his best days as a boxer are clearly behind him, Pacquiao once fought the best—fighters much bigger and stronger than him—and had won an unprecedented 11 titles in eight weight divisions.
But for every Manny Pacquiao who climbs into the ring all the way to glory days there are fighters like Z Gorres, whose boxing career was suddenly cut short in 2009 because of a brain injury from a fight that he won.
Or fighters like Luisito Espinosa and Rolando Navarette, once glorious champions who now have little to show for their ring exploits.
Or fighters like Ayon Naranjo. Four months before Manny’s reunion bout with Mexican legend Erik Morales in 2006, Naranjo climbed into a boxing ring in Japan to do battle against Jorge Linares, a promising Venezuelan fighter who since then has won the World Boxing Association and Ring magazine lightweight titles.
Naranjo had no business being in the ring with Linares. Even on his best night, he couldn’t have given the Venezuelan a busy fight. Maybe he wouldn’t even have dared climb into the ring against Linares had he not needed the measly $800 purse he was promised. The Venezuelan had a 17 wins-0 loss record (with 10 wins by knockout) going into the fight, while the Filipino had fought only seven times and lost four of them.
It would have been another glorified sparring session for Linares but things turned uglier than expected. Naranjo got beaten so badly during the six-round affair that he was rushed to the hospital after the fight and had to undergo surgery to ease the swelling of his brain.
We don’t know how Naranjo is doing today. We hope and pray that, somehow, somewhere, he is okay.
There are many Ayon Naranjos in this country, hundreds of other virtually unknown Filipino fighters who are fed into the boxing gristmill by unscrupulous promoters to serve as easy payday opponents against superior fighters just looking to rack up impressive win columns.
They climb into obscure rings across the country and all over the world with no media fanfare, no entourage, no Bob Arum blowing their horn and certainly no Freddie Roach providing them the best training. Win or lose you won’t see many politicians flocking to their corners. Clearly overmatched, they usually get mauled by their opponents, sometimes to fatal or near fatal consequences.
These fighters literally lay their lives inside the ring to put food on their families’ tables. They don’t dream about wearing any belts or earning millions from pay-per-view shares. They’re just fighting to survive, like most of the Philippine populace.
Who is to blame for their plight? The promoters who take advantage of them, even dupe them of their earnings? Those who connive to pit them in a series of mismatches against top-ranked contenders just so they could earn from their blood? The boxing organizations that sanction these mismatches and give these boxers licenses?
Maybe all of them and a few others are to blame. But the next time we pay homage to Manny Pacquiao, let us also remember that there is only one of him versus the many Z Gorreses, Ayon Naranjos, Luisito Espinosas and Rolando Navarettes.
Let’s think about these fighters, too, and ask what the government, which now has a Senator Pacquiao in its ranks, is doing to help protect their rights and safety and help take care of them long after they hang up their gloves.