If Haley Scarnato ever had blood pouring down her face, Americans didn’t have the displeasure of seeing it.
And Barack Obama might have gotten the best of a few opponents over the years, but as far as we know, he never did it with a pair of boxing gloves. And yet those unlikely scenes were the loose equivalent of Saturday’s wild night at the Alamodome, where one of the most beloved reality television stars in Mexico was beaten to a messy pulp and one of the hottest politicians in the Philippines boosted his candidacy with a few good right jabs.
Yes, Jorge Arce and Manny Pacquiao are boxers first and foremost. But in their native countries, they are cultural phenomena the likes of which few here can fully appreciate. And in their co-main events of the “Blaze of Glory” festivities at the dome, they took two dramatically different turns.
Arce, the flamboyant super flyweight from Los Mochis, Mexico, made his usual showman-like entrance, complete with his black felt cowboy hat and red lollipop. Hugely popular because of his entertaining style and appearances on Mexico’s versions of “Big Brother” and “Dancing With the Stars,” Arce had the majority of the announced Alamodome crowd of 14,793 behind him.
But the “American Idol”-like enthusiasm didn’t have “Idol”-like staying power. Against a quieter — but taller and more accurate — opponent in defending WBC super flyweight champion Cristian Mijares, Arce was humbled from the fight’s opening seconds.
In the first two rounds alone, Mijares landed 79 punches to Arce’s 11. By the end of the 12-round bout, that advantage had ballooned to 437-132.
It was the most thorough dismantling of a showboat at the Alamodome since last month’s NCAA basketball tournament, when Memphis forward Joey “Goliath” Dorsey was held scoreless by Ohio State’s Greg Oden, the man whom Dorsey referred to as “overrated.”
After Saturday’s fight, Arce had to swallow his pride the same way Dorsey did.
“I have no excuses,” said Arce, who bled profusely from the ninth round on after suffering a large gash on the bridge of his nose. “He was a better man.”
Mijares, for his part, understood the significance of beating an icon like Arce.
“I beat a legend,” Mijares said. “I beat a warrior.”
Pacquiao, meanwhile, took a huge step forward in both of his careers.
As a boxer, he left little doubt about his status as one of the sport’s best pound-for-pound fighters, overcoming a slow start to pummel Jorge Solis en route to an eighth-round knockout. His immediate prize for that accomplishment was being able to retain the WBC super featherweight title, but the bigger reward could come later.
Pacquiao is running for a seat in the Philippines’ House of Representatives, and his rousing victory on Saturday might have been just the political statement to put him over the top.
He certainly did his part to rouse feelings of patriotism. With Filipino flags waving and banners screaming, “Vote For Manny,” the opening ceremony to Pacquiao’s fight featured what was quite possibly the loudest group rendition of the Filipino national anthem in the history of South Texas.
And like all good politicians, Pacquiao promised to deliver more next time.
“I’m not 100 percent happy,” he said, “because this wasn’t 100 percent Manny Pacquiao.”
Here’s betting the voters, like the reality TV viewers, were listening.
