Month: May 2011

ABBA, the Swedish pop group that sold over 375 million records, had a No. 1 song called “Money, Money, Money.” Released in 1976 — two years before another No. 1, Manny Pacquiao, was born — the lyrics read: Money, money, money / Must be funny / In the rich man’s world / Money, money, money / Always sunny / In the rich man’s world… / A man like that is hard to find… / So I must leave, I’ll have to go / To Las Vegas or Monaco…

Sounds like it depicts a man named Manny with plenty of money in Vegas, right? Right. Because if you research on the Top 10 highest-earners in sports, you’ll find the following men on the list: Tiger Woods (# 1, $100 million), Kobe Bryant (2, $45M), Michael Jordan (3, $45M), Kimi Raikkonen (4, $45M), David Beckham (5, $42M), LeBron James (6, $40M), Phil Mickelson (8, $40M), Lionel Messi (9, $39M) and at No. 10, Alex Rodriguez, who earned $39 million.

If you look closely at the names, it’s missing one. You, of course, know this one. He’s number one in boxing. Rated # 7 in earnings for 2010, Manny’s money is estimated at $40,000,000. Translated to our currency, that’s P1.72 billion. Yes, no mistaken multiplication. Manny earned P1,720,000,000 in a 12-month period (from mid-2009 to mid-2010), mainly for just two fights, against Joshua Clottey and Miguel Cotto.

Two weeks ago, I read “PACMAN,” his biography. Gary Andrew Poole, the author, narrates of how poor Manny was (one meal a day, no place to sleep upon arrival in Manila, skeleton-thin in build and malnourished). In the book, MP’s story is even more unbelievable than, say, the flying powers of Superman or the hammer-wielding strength of Thor.

The past few years, each time Pacman enters the boxing ring, he’s guaranteed $15 million. That’s over six hundred million pesos. Per fight. Per maximum of 12 rounds. Per maximum of 36 minutes. In what has to be one of the most incredible “earnings-per-second” of any man in our planet’s history, against Ricky Hatton, our Pinoy boxer scored a KO victory in 2:59 of Round 2. Computing the $12 million that Mr. Pacquiao earned, that equates to $2 million earned per minute! Imagine that: Manny’s money is two million dollars per 60 seconds.

Compared to other athletes, they’re all KO’ed by Manny’s earning power. Take Rafael Nadal. In winning last year’s U.S. Open (the world’s richest tennis event), he brought home to Mallorca, Spain the amount of $1.7 million. Nadal had to beat seven opponents in two weeks to earn that money. (Manny earned the same, against Hatton, in less than a minute.) Or, shifting from sports to showbiz, how about comparing MP to, for example, a movie star like Will Smith. Last year, he was estimated to have earned a whopping $29 million. That’s plenty of green bucks for the Men In Black actor. Still, it’s much less compared to our Pinoy boxer who also doubles, unfortunately, as a money-losing movie actor.

MAY 8. This morning, Philippine time, as traffic stops, church pews are emptied, burglary ceases, mothers are celebrated, and everybody’s Filipino eyeballs fixated on the TV screens, Manny will feast on Las Vegas money. Guaranteed $20 million, plus-plus-plus the revenues from PPV and many more +++s, Rep. Pacquiao, to no surprise, has been declared by our congress as our nation’s “richest Congressman.” He declared more than a billion pesos net worth.

Imagine if, after beating Mosley this morning, he returns to Las Vegas in October then obliterates Juan Manuel Marquez, taking home another briefcase of cash amounting to $25M, then, next year, if the Fight of the Century happens, he adds $50,000,000 to his pocketbook and blemishes Floyd Mayweather, Jr.’s record? No Hollywood movie — even the L.A. Lakers’ unbelievable 0-3 record to Dallas Mavericks — can beat his true-to-life story.

I’ve had the rare opportunity, back in September of ‘007, to witness Manny Pacquiao train. It was at the Rex “Wakee” Salud Gym in Labangon and, thanks to Philboxing’s co-administrator Salven Lagumbay (who, coincidentally, is celebrating his birthday today), I watched MP up-close. Twice.

“Manny Pacquiao had just finished 10 rounds of sparring,” I wrote four years ago. “Tired? Did he look fatigued? No. How about recharged? Or pumped-up? For one-and-a-half hours, I observed Manny. After sparring, Manny stepped down the ring then proceeded to pummel the double-end bag. He stared at the round leather that hung from the ceiling, encircled it, threw quick jabs, moved his head left, ducked, stepped back, forward.”

MP. Those initials don’t just spell out the initials of the most famous Pinoy, they also translate to many words. Maximum Pain. That’s one. For no boxer — and possibly athlete — is willing to drip more sweat, digest more punishment, and smile more while relishing all the affliction, than MP.

Gordon Marino of The Wall Street Journal, yesterday, wrote a stellar piece, “The Fight of the Physical Outlier.” I quote some portions…

“Pacquiao does 2,000 repetitions each day of situps and other punishing abdominal exercises,” said Marino. “He rounds out these exercises by, among other things, fast hill runs, interval training, zipping around cones to improve footwork and even, when no fight is coming up, playing basketball.”

MP’s resting heart rate is 42. That’s absurdly low. “Some endurance athletes, like Olympic cross-country skiers,” said Mr. Marino, “have lower resting pulse rates—somewhere around 38, Ariza says—but they also train at high altitude, something Pacquiao doesn’t. ‘Manny is on the level of the most conditioned athletes in the world,’ the trainer says. ‘He’s a phenomenon. I wish we could do in-depth tests, but he doesn’t like anything invasive.’”

This MP spells Mankind’s Phenomenon. MP is so gifted and driven that boxers often try to emulate his training. They can’t. In my two visits to the RWS Gym, I interviewed boxers and trainers. They all recited the same Quotable Quote: “Many follow Manny’s intense training. They all get sick!”

MP = Marvelous Pugilist. Simply, MP trains too hard, too intensely, too much. Haven’t we read of Alex Ariza and Freddie Roach asking their pupil to slow down and relax? Wow. How many athletes have been told the same? I can’t remember any other.

“Manny will go 15 rounds hitting the pads with me, and do exercises in the 60-second intervals between rounds,” says Roach. ‘It’s crazy.’”

“On days when we have heavy sparring, we like to cut out the morning run,” Ariza says. “Manny knows this and he’ll plead, ‘Please don’t stop me from running today.'”

While 98.7 percent of us often ask for stoppage to excruciating physical torture, it’s the opposite for MP. “Other differences that make Pacquiao stand out are the intensity and tempo at which he trains and fights, and his ability to ignore pain,” wrote Gordon Marino. “Most boxers are constantly trying to decide when to expend energy and when to take a round off. Pacquiao likes to know that he has enough training in the bank to allow him to bring the most intense heat possible and to punch almost continuously.”

Muscle Power. That’s MP. Shawn Porter, his sparring-mate, explains: “Sure, Manny is fast and hits hard, but the thing that is special with him is his intensity. It is electric in there. He is always pushing the pace.”

Ariza, quoted by Marino, likens Pacquiao to a military person (Navy SEAL?) who has the ability to extinguish pain during heavy exertion. Said Ariza: “Manny is definitely one of them. When Manny was a kid, he would run five miles a day in flip flops. Try that for a while and it will not only toughen your feet up, it will increase your pain tolerance.”

Digesting all this penance, Manny, who is set to earn P600,000,000 this Sunday, is also this MP: Mega-billionaire Pinoy.

Finally, our MP hope… Mosley, Pildi.

Last Saturday night in Canada, Randy Couture, three years shy of his golden birthday, got pounded in the jaw by Lyoto Machida’s flying kick; his head snapped at the ferocity of the impact as he tumbled on the Octagon floor.

Randy Couture is a Hall of Famer. He’s one of the–if not THE–most famous mixed-martial artist on earth. He’s revered. Yet, he is antique. Compared to Machida, who’s 15 years younger, Couture was primitive. Like S. S. Mosley?

With five days left before Manny Pacquiao battles another elderly, are we to expect the same quick finish? We hope so, of course. But this might be unrealistic. In an article in The Phil. Star last April 19, my favorite scribe, Quinito Henson, outlined reasons why Shane Mosley is not an easy prey.

“Why Mosley is Dangerous,” Henson’s column title, he enumerated 14 bullet points on the strength of the Californian. I’ll cite a few.

“He has one-punch knockout power in either hand, particularly the right,” said Quinito in Reason # 1. “In boxing, all it takes is a single connection and the fight could be over. Mosley boasts a knockout rate of 85 percent or 39 KOs of 46 wins, compared to Pacquiao’s 73 percent or 38 KOs of 52 wins.”

An 85 percent knockout rate is remarkable. As hard as MP has trained for this Sunday — possibly the best training he’s ever done — he’s got to be careful of Mosley’s right blow.

“He’s the only fighter to defeat the legendary Oscar de la Hoya twice,” said Quinito. These wins were in 2000 and 2003, back when ODLH was still in his prime.

“He’s the ‘longest’ fighter ever to battle Pacquiao with a startling 74-inch wingspan,” said Quinito. “That translates to a massive seven-inch reach advantage for Mosley. Two Pacquiao victims, Margarito and De la Hoya, both measure 73 inches in wingspan.”

Another reason, cited Mr. Henson: “He’s comfortable fighting in the 147-pound division. Mosley has weighed over 142 pounds for 22 bouts since 1999. Pacquiao has fought in only four fights weighing over 142 since 2008. Pacquiao scaled 142 pounds for De la Hoya, 144 for Miguel Cotto, 145 3/4 for Joshua Clottey and 144 1/2 for Margarito. Mosley will likely weigh five to 10 pounds more than Pacquiao when they square off. The edge in heft may be an advantage or a disadvantage for Mosley.”

Maybe because of “over-training” (Freddie Roach has advised his pupil to slow down), the Sarangani congressman weighs reportedly less now than while preparing for his past fights. We hope this does not translate to him weighing, on fight night, 10 or more lbs. lighter than Mosley.

“He has experience on his side,” added Quinito. Sugar Shane has fought in 53 fights that totaled 376 rounds. He’s joined 19 world title fights. Manny? He’s done 329 rounds, 57 bouts and 16 world title bouts. “Mosley racked up a record of 38-0, with 35 KOs, before tasting his first defeat nine years after turning pro. Pacquiao raced to an 11-0 record, with only three KOs, before suffering his initial setback to Torrecampo in 1996,” said Quinito.

Mosley defeated Antonio Margarito. So did Pacquiao. But, while Manny went 12 rounds with the Tijuana Tornada, Mr. Mosley finished the Mexican-American via a 9th round TKO.

Finally, in what to me is a crucial point, Quinito adds: “He fights like Juan Manuel Marquez. Pacquiao had difficulty against the Mexican in two bouts. Marquez, a technician, counter-punched and repeatedly found an opening for his right hand down the middle, into the heart of Pacquiao’s defense. Mosley will try to do the same on May 7.”

These Mosley advantages don’t mean he’s the favorite. Far from it. As we know, the odds are this: Your P70,000 bet on Manny will win you only P10,000. And vice versa for Mosley: bet P100 on him and you’ll win P700.

Still, as what we’ve seen mid-April when underdogs Orlando Salido and Victor Ortiz upset Juan Manuel Lopez and Andre Berto, there are no guarantees in boxing. Let’s just hope that, at a prehistoric age of 39, Mosley will do a Couture and end up in the same place come fight’s end. On the floor.