Category: Manny Pacquiao

Everybody who wears red gloves, who clenches their fists, grits their teeth, and confronts this Filipino diamond named Manny Pacquiao says the same thing: I’ll beat that Man.

Everybody, at the end of the 3rd or the 7th or the 12th round, with eyes swollen, ribs mutilated, cheekbones tarnished—all testify in unison: Man, he’s too good.

The last time someone defeated Pacquiao? The year was 2007. His name wasn’t David Diaz or Ricky Hatton or Joshua Clottey. All those and many more lost to MP.

The last one? A she: Darlene Antonino-Custodio. That was fought in the political ring—an arena unlike Manny’s preferred stage.

With boxing, it’s been 14 straight wins for Pacman. Not since March 2005—or six-and-a-half years ago; against San Miguel Beer endorser Erik Morales—has our modern-day Jose Rizal experienced a loss.

This November 12, Manny is assured of Victory No. 15 in the same way that Ateneo will surely win the UAAP crown. It’s a future fact that we know today.

Looking back, the first time Juan Manuel Marquez battled Pacquiao was in 2004. The score was a draw. Then, the second time they punctured each other’s abdomens, J-M-M beat M-P. You and I witnessed it. Yes, it was a close, close war—but I thought our man lost. Yet… our Man’ won. That was 3 ½ years ago.

Two months from now, when the Mexican and the taga-GenSan meet again, it won’t be a perplexing debate to judge. Marquez is 38 years old. That’s way too young to be a grandfather—but way too old to be a fighter. Manny will ambush him; he’ll bat his head with his knuckles; he’ll bust his jaws; Manny will wallop every inch of Juan Manuel’s bare chest and face and bloody him down to the floor of Las Vegas.

Bob Arum, nearly 80, is boxing’s Mr. Experience. He knows and we know that, this November, Manny will use the Mexican as a punching bag for next year’s Mayweather quarrel.

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.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL2lKBC7lTc&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

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Wakee, introducing Manny to Nonito, during the 2009 Cebu Sports Awards

Yesterday morning, I spoke to one of Congressman Pacquiao’s best friends. “Manny and I became close in 2005,” said Rex “Wakee” Salud, who was in Cagayan de Oro yesterday when we talked for 18 minutes. “He had just lost the fight to Morales and I invited him to attend a promotion I organized in Lapu-Lapu. Manny came. That’s when our friendship started.”

Since then, M & W have been inseparable. Maybe you can call Mr. Salud “the good luck charm” of Rep. Pacquiao because, after their meeting, PacMan has not lost a fight since. That’s 13 straight wins leading up to Mosley. “Every fight since we became close, I’ve watched in person,” said Wakee, who’ll be flying to Las Vegas next Tuesday, on May 3.

Wakee’s biggest contribution to Manny’s career? It was convincing our Pinoy pride to stick with Bob Arum after he had signed with Oscar de la Hoya. “After Manny defeated Morales, he no longer wanted to sign with Top Rank,” said Wakee. “It was one of his last fights with their promotion. We were together in Denny’s restaurant in Los Angeles. Then, Freddie Roach fetched him in the airport. I didn’t know where they went. Attorney Gacal was with them…”

Of course, now we know that Manny met with Oscar de la Hoya that day. “Oscar offered $500,000 cash as signing bonus. Manny took it. He signed the contract. The next day, after the press conference, Bob Arum wanted to meet with Manny. At first, he refused. I asked Manny to listen to Bob; anyway, there was no harm in listening. And so, in one room, it was just the four of us: Manny, Bob Arum, myself and Michael Koncz. While Arum was speaking, Manny was just nodding his head. All along, while he did not say it, he had already signed with Golden Boy Promotions.

“I flew back to the Philippines. I arrived in Manila on a Friday and flew to Cebu on Sunday. Then Manny called. That’s when he told me about his acceptance of the $500,000 and his signing with Golden Boy. I told him he should have put that on hold first. Maybe Arum will match that offer. ‘Come here right away,’ said Manny. ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I just got home and it’s a Sunday. The travel agencies are closed.‘ But Manny insisted. And so on Monday, I bought a ticket and returned to L.A.”

At that point, nobody knew what was going on behind the scenes. Nobody could talk to Manny. Except one… RWS. “Ako ra gyud maka-duol ni Manny (It was only I, at that time, who could talk to Manny),” he said. “I stayed for 10 days in L.A., even spending my birthday there. Manny was afraid to go back to Arum. Hadlok siya mo pirma (He was afraid to sign), given that he had just signed with Oscar.”

Arum made a counteroffer of $1,000,000. “Plus, he would handle all the legal problems that were sure to happen,” said Wakee. “Manny further negotiated. He asked that the TV rights in the Phils. be under him. Arum said okay.”

The rest, as the cliche goes, is history. Who knows what would have happened had MP cemented his agreement with ODLH? “For sure,” said Wakee, “there would have been no Pacquiao vs. De La Hoya fight. How can a promoter fight his own boxer?”

I asked Wakee about next weekend’s May 7 fight. “Before Manny left for America, we were together. I was able to go up to Baguio and watched him spar for five rounds. At that time, he had cough and colds, maybe due to the hot-and-cold changing weather. Even when I dropped him at the airport before he flew to L.A., he was coughing.” Wakee’s prediction? KO before Round 10.

What makes MP unbelievable? “He’s one of a kind. His resistance is unbelievable. He trains the longest. Even though he’s been absent from his workouts prior to training, when he’d come back, his stamina is still there. One time, we were together and, for three straight days, he did not sleep. We played poker, billiards. Pulaw siya tu-lo ka gabii. Imagine that. For us, we’d already faint and weaken. Not Manny. His resistance is so strong. He’s one of a kind. And, most of all, it’s God-given. Even Manny himself says so. Manny knows it’s a gift from God.”

UBAY, Bohol – I’m here with my father-in-law, Jacinto “Jack” Mendez. The past three days, in between church visits, we eat fresh crabs, nap, watch the sunrise, exchange stories, swim, read. We’re at his rest-house that’s situated on a ledge and overlooking 180 degrees of the sea.

I brought a book. “PacMan: Behind the scenes with Manny Pacquiao, the greatest pound-for-pound fighter in the world” is written by Gary Andrew Poole, who used to write for the New York Times and GQ. It’s 248 pages long. Among the few books that I’ve read of MP, it’s the best.

Divided into 13 chapters, it begins with the Prologue. Manny is training in the Wild Card Gym. His daily meals at Nat’s Thai, which serves Filipino dishes, is well documented. The other chapters? Number One is “The City of Dust,” the author’s term for Gen. Santos City.

“The province, the place where Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao was born on December 17, 1978, is the fourth poorest in the Philippines, where boys risk their lives to climb coconut trees (to make fifty centavo per coconut), play basketball on dirt courts, ride four to a motorcycle, get addicted to shabu (a combination of meth and caffeine), and live in endless crap, with roosters, goats, stray dogs, and no running water.”

The American author, Mr. Poole, describes our country in the poorest of terms. Sure, we’re no rich New York City, but given that he wanted to portray Manny growing up amidst the most slum of cities, he describes us as a destination of dirt and dirty men.

“The Streets of Manila” is Chapter Two and it explains the path taken by Pacquiao, at age 15, from GenSan to Manila. Manny’s first residence is in Malabon and his first manager, Polding Correa. “The GenSan boys sold doughnuts and worked construction (once he didn’t eat for four days because his employer didn’t pay him),” wrote Poole in page 23.

The book is well-written. As you turn each page and your mind deciphers the words, you can’t wait for the next discovery in Pacquiao’s life. We’ve known about Manny’s dire upbringing — but it’s only after reading this book that you learn the details. “Life is difficult here,” said Manny. “There are times when I eat rice only once a day.” Those words Pacquiao wrote to his mom in a letter.

The tenacity and no-fear that Manny displays on the ring today, no doubt, can all be attributed to the years of poverty that he endured.

L&M was the name of his first boxing gym. It was along Paquita St. “In the fate-obsessed Philippines, it was known as a lucky gym for producing champions, but it was considered (with a sick sense of pride) the planet’s worst-smelling boxing establishment,” wrote Poole.

“‘When Pacquiao came here, he didn’t have anything,” says Ramon ‘Moy’ Lainez, the ‘L’ in the L&M. ‘He was a stowaway, and he wasn’t very strong. We didn’t expect much from him. He had a big heart, he really wanted to fight, he really trained, and he dreamed that someday he will be a world champion.” That appeared in page 25.

Of the many themes that emerged from the book, what stands tallest is the teamwork between MP and Freddie Roach. As we know, without Roach’s fatherly guidance, our Pinoy hero wouldn’t be as great. It was 10 years ago when Manny first met Freddie – when he was brought to the U.S. by Rod Nazario. After watching Manny hit the mitts for the first time in his gym, Roach commented, “The speed and power worked so well together. Kind of just jumped on you… Within three minutes, it was like we knew each other our entire lives.”

The rest of the chapters — “The Mexecutioner,” “The Golden Boy and the Hitman,” and “Going Global,” and more — are exciting. As I said, many episodes we partly know — but not the full details, which are all bared open in this book.

“Don’t Quote Me on the Women” is on Chapter 7. Self-explanatory, if you want tsismis and Krista Ranillo stories, read this portion.

Read this biography. With 14 days left before Shane Mosley tastes the gloves of Manny on his cheekbones, this is the perfect appetizer and prequel. Happy Easter!

Manny steals my candies, said Tommy Osmeña. Yes, that’s true. The richest athlete that our nation has ever produced, pocketing P500,000,000 per blockbuster fight, the man who owns mansions spanning Los Angeles and General Santos, the congressman who bankrolled his own election campaign… yes, this billionaire codenamed Pacman… steals the candies of Tommy O.

“We sit beside each other in Congress,” said Tomas R. Osmeña, the Congressman of the Cebu City South District of his counterpart Representative of Sarangani Province. “I always keep candies in my drawer. After I leave my seat and come back, they’re gone. I look at Manny. He has all my candies!”

Last Wednesday night, I was seated beside Tommy. To my right was Vice Mayor Joy Augustus Young. We were at the International Culinary Arts Academy of Cebu, or the ICAAC (owned by the younger brother of the vice mayor, Jeremy Young). Our group of 20 included my fellow members from the Rotary Club of Cebu West: Lenton Beltran, Ex Bollozos, Andrew Ching, Nilo Domingo, Romy Dy Pico, Nonito Narvasa, Francis Onglatco, Carlo Suarez, Alvin Tan, Justin Uy, Wilton Uykingtian and John Young. Joining us were three Rotarians from Rotary Singapore West: Tay Wei Lien, Darryl Kuek, Chio Poh Leng and Ashley McKinnon, plus a representative of SOS Phils., Pamela Daguman. Our Rotary groups were invited by Vice Mayor Young for dinner to celebrate our joint project with the Cebu City government and DepEd. We donated a total of 50,000 books to the Library Hub.

In our dinner of fresh salad with white cheese, the main dish of salmon, asparagus and scallops, and dessert of freshly-made chocolate ice cream, we discussed a milieu of topics. They ranged from Pres. Noynoy’s visit to Singapore (and having to climb 20 flights of stairs when the elevator broke down) to Flor Contemplacion’s execution in 1994 to the Magazine Hub project that we’re targeting for Cebu City. Then, we talked in length about the world’s most popular Filipino.

“I asked to be seated beside Manny in Congress,” said Rep. Osmeña. “The story about the candies? I ended up placing a bunch full of candies inside his drawer so he won’t steal from me.” John Young, seated to Tommy’s left, laughed.

“How many times have you watched Manny fight?” I asked. Tommy sat expressionless. Mentally, he was counting. “I can’t remember how many because I’ve watched so many of his fights,” he said. This May 7 in Las Vegas, Pacquiao’s good friend and fellow congressman will once more be there to cheer for him.

The Ricky Hatton KO? “The morning before each fight, Manny always has mass celebrated. I was there. I had just recovered from cancer. The moment I entered the room, Manny saw me. He asked that I sit beside him. ‘But, no,’ I said, ‘that’s reserved for Jinkee.’ Manny insisted. I sat beside him during mass. Then, during the homily, the priest asked Manny to say a few words. Manny got the microphone and, instead, gave it to me. He wanted me to say something. I said no. Finally, Manny spoke and, in the end, interrupted the mass and forced me to speak. I talked about my own fight — and victory — over cancer.”

Manny is a very caring person, said Tommy. He’s always concerned. During his birthdays, the Pambansang Kamao never fails to call and greet.

“When I had my bout against cancer,” said Osmeña, “I received a phone call the night before Manny’s fight against Oscar de la Hoya. He said, ‘Are you coming to watch?’ I said, ‘No, I can’t. I’m in Houston. But my son Miguel will be there.’”

Tommy wished Manny good luck while Manny wished Tommy a speedy recovery. “Then, the day after the fight, when nobody expected Manny to beat De la Hoya but he did, I get another unexpected call. It’s Manny. Imagine how busy he is, swamped with all these people. He remembers to call. That’s how good a person he is. You know what Manny told me?”

Our Rotary table sat silent, awaiting. “I won my fight,” Manny told me. “Now you win yours.”