It?s a bitter pill to swallow if you?re a fan of Manny Pacquiao. But, more than ten days removed from the Super Bowl of boxing against Floyd Mayweather, your head should be clear and the sheer frustration should have subsided. Now, it?s time to own up to reality.
Manny Pacquiao ruined the mega-fight.
And not only did he ruin it, but he and his team did their very best to gut the entire sport of boxing as a means to deflect attention away from their post-fight humiliation.
When the final decision did not go his way, Pacquiao opted to make excuses and generate a misleading cloud of controversy that completely turned off casual fans and made them feel as though they were duped into buying this big ticket pay-per-view. These fans will not likely be back for the next event?and this is all because of a supposed pre-fight shoulder injury that Pacquiao claimed to have intentionally hidden from the buying public.
A couple of days later, when lawsuits from disgruntled fans began to emerge, Team Pacquiao changed their story. Now, in this new version of the truth, Manny had recovered from his injury and was in fine health on fight night, only to re-injure himself during the bout.
Some feel that neither injury story is 100% legitimate and will opine on the possibility of a darker, more nefarious reason for Team Pacquiao requesting a shot of Toradol before a bout where, on pre-fight commission medical forms, he claimed to be completely healthy.
Different stories, but, really, the same deal. Pacquiao opted to taint the outcome of the fight and disrespect his opponent because he could not do what he promised the world he would do to Mayweather. It?s bad form as a professional and pure disrespect for the sport. And this feeling is not confined to just the boxing world.
“I believe he should have accepted his defeat graciously,? wrote Filipino former Supreme Court Chief Justice, Artemio Panganiban in his Inquirer.net column. ?That would have been most honorable…It is said that no Filipino loses an election. Either he wins or is cheated. Must it be the same in boxing? Banter aside, fairness, honor and transparency should define every public endeavor, including boxing.”
In the ring, Pacquiao also had nobody to blame but himself. Let?s concede that Mayweather ran and clinched most of the night. Okay. But didn?t Manny, like the rest of us, know that Floyd?s strategy would be one of avoidance and opportunistic counter-punching?
Pacquiao simply didn?t have any answers for the Mayweather riddle and couldn?t execute anything resembling a coherent game plan. By the middle of the fifth round, he had been reduced to a mess of meaningless movement, jumbled footwork, and pure desperation?not unlike just about everyone else to ever step into the ring with Mayweather.
In the fight, Pacquiao proved himself to be a mere mortal. After the fight, he showed an ugly side that most were not prepared to see.
To this day, he holds firm that he looked awful and confused and ineffectual due to a shoulder injury, but that he still won the fight anyway. And he?s allowed to be this delusional because his shame is washed away by the blind adulation of his hardcore fans. Maybe in due time, he?ll even start to actually believe all of this. But none of that erases the actual truth.
With, literally, the whole world watching, Manny Pacquiao proved that he had less character and integrity than arch-rival Floyd Mayweather?at least when it comes to boxing.
