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If Floyd Mayweather fights to win, Manny Pacquiao fights-in his own words-"to make the fans happy."
Pacquiao knows what he is talking about and people understand where he is coming from. When he was too young to make a decent living for himself and his family, life was so hard that controlling body weight was forced not by boxing rules but by lack of food to eat. "I understand," he said, "how it feels when people go hungry."
Every Philippine centavo was gold to the Pacquiao household. Which was why affluence became Manny Pacquiao when he earned his first paychecks of a hundred pesos (about 2 US dollars) fighting as a youngster in village-level fiestas. This is how relative reality is and that was how he valued hard-earned money. That was then. Today, he has earned more than a billion of Philippine pesos from boxing and commercial appearances, but his appreciation of each hard-earned peso remains the same.
He knows boxing fans spend equally good hard-earned money to watch his fights. He swears it's his job, as a professional fighter, to ensure they get their money's worth every time they see him perform.
When people watch Pacquiao fight, they see an incredible small-sized package of ferocity and aggression let loose inside the ring. What they may not see is what burns at the core of that package, the one that fuels such a huge amount of energy and passion-courage.
It takes courage to be able to continually honor one's commitment. It takes courage to make the fans happy and keep them from being disappointed.
And courage-the heart of a warrior-is what makes Pacquiao the world's greatest fighter that he has become. Courage allowed him to challenge what lurked behind the unknown: whether it was, in search of his future in boxing, a strange life in the city where he knew no one and no one knew him; how a fight wish would play out against, for example, one of then boxing's hottest properties in Marco Antonio Barrera; coping with size disadvantage as in the case of fighting Oscar De La Hoya; the impossibility of moving up in weight and continuing to dominate the opposition; and try to see what it takes to test the limits of a world-class athlete, like himself.
Early in life Pacquiao knew he would become a boxing champion. The problem was, given the limited choices which his poor family had, he did not have ready resources to get there.
So he took odd jobs to keep body and soul together, as it were, while his dream of making it big in boxing someday continued to consume his waking hours. He left grade school to focus on making a living, and on dreaming his dream.
But the hardships of life remained unforgiving to the Pacquiao household. They came in many forms, in addition to material want. The father, who left earlier to take a better-paying job, eventually left for good. The second of 6 siblings, Manny was, in the normal ways of a Filipino family set-up, had to rise up and take the survival cudgels for the family. "Don't worry, Ma," the 15-year-old Manny vowed to his mother, "I will take care of this." He was referring to the financial and emotional problems of the family.
He soon left General Santos City, his hometown, for Manila, the big city, with nobody at home aware of it. He left a note, however, explaining his departure.
Several months later, Dionisia, Manny's mother, received by post a letter from Manny excitedly telling her to watch him fight on national television. It was January in 1996 and, from then on, Dionisia and the entire Filipino nation found itself glued to television whenever Manny stepped inside the ring to fight.
It turned out Pacquiao was not only a performer; he was also a winner. From the time he turned professional at 16 to the present (he will turn 31 in December 17, 2009), he has already won world titles in 6 different weight divisions. Only two fighters in all of boxing history (the other one being De La Hoya), has reached that height of achievement.
By 2008, after beating the highly-favored De La Hoya, Pacquiao has blossomed to become a global celebrity. Acclaimed in 2009 by Times Magazine as one of the world's most influential persons, Pacquiao is also one of the world's richest athlete.
Fifteen years after he left General Santos to find his star in the boxing universe, he has returned as a hero. He kept his promise and made his mother proud.
On November 14, 2009, Pacquiao defeated former WBO welterweight champion Miguel Ángel Cotto of Puerto Rico by TKO in the 12th round, at the MGM Grand Las Vegas. Even before Ricky Hatton's fight against Paulie Malignaggi last year, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum stated his desire for Pacquiao to fight Cotto. Pacquiao then gave Arum the go signal to arrange the fight after Cotto won a hard-fought decision against Joshua Clottey at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Meanwhile, current WBA welterweight champion "Sugar" Shane Mosley tried to lure Pacquiao to fight him. Mosley even offered Pacquiao for a fight at junior welterweight (140 pounds), Pacquiao's weight class as of the moment. However, after unsuccessful attempts, Mosley shifted his focus to a fight against WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto.
Among the details that were agreed upon for the Pacquiao–Cotto fight were the weight (both camps agreed to the 145 pound catchweight) and the purse (Pacquiao will get the 65% share of PPV buys, as compared to Cotto's 35% share). In addition, the fight would be for the WBO Welterweight title.
Pacquiao solidly defeated Cotto to become the new WBO welterweight champion, his seventh title in seven weight classes. After winning the first round and arguably the fifth, Cotto appeared to tire progressively while Pacquiao maintained his speed and power, dropping Cotto in the third. At the end of the 11th round, Cotto's own father sought to stop the fight. Cotto and his trainer, however, wanted to continue, and the HBO announcers speculated it was so Cotto could have the honor of finishing. A minute into the 12th round, however, it was clear that Cotto could not throw any more decent punches, prompting the referee to stop things.
In the 12th round of the match, referee Kenny Bayless stopped the match, awarding the match to Pacquiao by TKO due to his nearly uninterrupted domination of Cotto after the first round. With this victory, Pacquiao took the WBO welterweight title, his seventh world championship and became the first boxer in history to win seven world titles in seven different weight divisions.
Excerpts from "Manny Pacquiao - The Greatest Boxer Of All Time"
About Author:
Hermilando "Ingming" Duque Aberia is a social development worker by training and profession. He has worked for close to 23 years for government and non-government agencies in the Philippines. He has a master's degree in Development Management from the Asian Institute of Management. Writing for him is both a hobby and a drain for emotional overflow. He writes on various subjects and has published some of his works in Philippine newspapers. He has also dabbled in online advocacy and home-based marketing. He maintains a website at http://pacquiaodgoat.ws.