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Philippines, 06 May 2024 |
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Another Stirring Comeback for December-born Manny Pacquiao in 2023? By Teodoro Medina Reynoso PhilBoxing.com Sat, 10 Dec 2022  Second of Two Parts: A Better Career Finis--Old Great Warriors Never Die, They Just Ride Into the Sunset Heading into the second decade of the new millennium, Manny Pacquiao seemed unstoppable in the welterweights which became his permanent home after winning and eventually quickly relinquishing the WBC super welterweight crown in 2010 and following this up with another victory over closest archnemesis Juan Manuel Marquez in yet another successful defense of his WBO welterweight title. Earlier, Manny had virtually toyed with big Ghanaian Joshua Clottey, another hitherto feared fighter who nearly beat Miguel Cotto, in his maiden title defense. The vista seemed open for Manny for more conquests at 147 lbs as he kept his ranking as the planet's best pound for pound fighter notwithstanding the return of former titlist Floyd Mayweather Jr. But Manny would suffer back to back ring losses in 2012, losing his WBO world welterweight crown via highly disputed split decision to the bald patent American tough guy Timothy "Dessert Storm" Bradley in June and getting knocked out face first by bitter rival JuanMa Marquez in December in a high profile non title bout also held in Las Vegas. Calls for hanging his gloves up were issued after the Marquez knockout loss where he was rendered unconscious for sometime on the canvas. But Manny was far from over. In 2013, he made another memorable return and thrashed toughie Brandon Rios in the former Portuguese enclave of Macau and proceeded to regain his WBO crown by whitewashing Bradley coming back to Las Vegas in 2014. Manny made it three wins in a row by outclassing Chris Algieri in another high profile bout in the Asian gambling capital of Macau. Finally the showdown with Mayweather Jr happened in 2015 in a fight bruited as Battle of the Century that resulted to Manny's only sixth career defeat mainly on account of his injured right shoulder which Floyd fully exploited during the contest that generated an all time record high of nearly four million pay per view buys worldwide. It looked as though Manny was finished as he had to go on a lengthy hiatus to salve his bruised ego and primarily to undergo surgery to repair his injured right shoulder which some experts said could be career ending. But Manny would again come back the following year and in 2016 he defeated Bradley once more for superiority and big American Jessie Vargas for his third tenure as WBO welterweight titlist. Then came the robbery Down South in June 2017 which saw him lose once again his WBO belt via controversial 12-round unanimous decision loss to the tall and big rugged Australian Jeff Horn. Again there would be some calls for Manny to retire. And for a while it seemed even to some of his avid supporters that Manny was slipping, struggling and losing to a Jeff Horn who he would have easily disposed of a year or two earlier. Indeed, during some moments in their fight, Manny was on the verge of knocking out or stopping Horn but just could not deliver the finishing blows. Manny was pushing forty and to many, he was already on the last leg of his legendary career in which many also expected him to merely go through the motion before hanging his gloves up following a loss to one of the younger lions out there. But again, Manny surprised everybody by winning yet another world title, though a secondary one, the WBA regular welterweight belt by stopping a former dreaded KO artist himself in Argentine Bomber Lucas's Matthysse inside seven rounds after flooring him thrice coming back in mid 2018. That fight held in Malaysia and promoted by Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy convinced many that Manny still had it in him to still be competitive at elite level despite his advancing age. He would be back in Las Vegas and he would make it two in a row as he successfully defended the same title by pounding out a unanimous decision win over former Floyd wannabe Adrien Broner. But the real challenge would be the then returning still undefeated Keith Thurman who was the WBA super champion of the division. Many did not give Manny a chance to pull the rugs from under the younger, bigger and stronger Thurman despite his coming back from injuries incurred from previous hard fights. But upset him Manny did in style, flooring him early in the fight and weathering his strong rallies in the later rounds to win by close split decision in July of 2019. Then Covid struck in the later part of 2019 which became a full blown pandemic in 2020 forcing a stop to boxing and practically almost everything. Again Manny was forced to a lengthy hiatus which resulted to the WBA unceremoniously stripping him of his super championship in early 2021 and handing it on a silver platter to Cuban expat Yordenis Ugas who had earlier succeeded Manny as regular titlist. It was a difficult setback for Manny considering how the pandemic had severely constricted his options. Still Manny persevered and pursued to win another world championship and go out as champion as the 2022 Philippine presidential elections loomed. After talks with Terrence Crawford and Bob Arum got nowhere early in 2021, Manny set his sights on triple belt holder Errol Spence and succeeded in signing him up for a fight in July. But it was belatedly discovered that Spence had a lingering eye injury from an earlier car crash so Spence had to be scratched out so near to the fight. The organisers scrambled to come up with a substitute and pulled out Ugas as opponent for Manny for a re-thought of fight for the WBA welterweight super championship, ironically the same belt earlier stripped from Manny. Perhaps demoralised by how things went with the originally scheduled Spence fight and by the thought of him fighting for the WBA welterweight super belt which was actually and rightfully his in the first place, Manny was not his usual self come fight time against Ugas. It appeared Manny was just going through the motion and expectedly lost a unanimous decision verdict to the lanky Cuban who ringside reporters said looked like a full middleweight compared to Manny. Later, Manny announced his retirement from boxing after more than 35 years of active prizefighting. To my mind, Manny's decision was borne more out of his impending sally to the presidential race in 2022 and how he was unfairly treated by the WBA after giving it honor by becoming its world champion for the first time and lending his illustrious name as he went about defending the WBA regular title. It was not about his defeat to Ugas where his mental baggage and listlessness more than anything Ugas did, costed him. And now that the presidential elections are far behind him and he is no longer a Senator, Manny has the freedom to get back at his old passion and write a different ending to his storied boxing career. After all, as the saying goes, old great warriors never dies, they just fade away. If we go by ring history, Sugar Ray Robinson whom many regards as the greatest boxer ever, fought on ten more years after his last middleweight title fight in 1955 and he fought on well into his forties, even giving difficult times to future greats and world champions. Let's give Manny his well deserved chance for a better career finis. The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477. Photo: Boxing legend Manny Pacquiao (R) shakes hands with South Korea's martial artist DK Yoo during Friday's press conference ahead of their exhibition match today, Dec. 10 at the Korea international Exhibition Center in Goyang, South Korea. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.  |
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