The Bay Area’s No. 1 fighter isn’t from this hemisphere, doesn’t live or train here and probably is recognizable to less than half of the region’s sports populace.
But it was obvious Saturday that the presence and grin of Manny Pacquiao – the most cherished Filipino athlete of all time – causes a greater seismic ripple here than any of his contemporaries.
Greater than Oakland’s Andre Ward, the Olympic gold medalist who has yet to fight for a pro title. Greater than Gilroy’s Robert Guerrero, who has a title and a solid fan base but hasn’t made a larger impact on the sport or the Bay Area.
If you were at Berkeley’s West-Wind Karate School for Pacquiao’s public workout Saturday and heard the chanting and the squealing of several hundred fans . . . you knew that Pacquiao owns the Bay Area boxing market.
“As far as the audience in Northern California, there is no question the No. 1 fighter is Manny Pacquiao,” said promoter Bob Arum, who has a vested interest in such knowledge and such conclusions. “No question at all.”
Bigger than Oscar De La Hoya? “More than De La Hoya,” Arum said.
I checked that with a less subjective boxing source, who allowed that De La Hoya remains the sport’s top draw across the nation, including the Bay Area, but added that Pacquiao is a close and quite lucrative No. 2 in this region.
No. 2 with a bullet, as he heads into his June 28 lightweight-title fight in Las Vegas against champion David Diaz. It will be Pacquiao’s first fight at 135 pounds after capturing titles and initiating raucous brawls in three lower weight classes. Whatever the weight, Pacquiao, at 29, is now a pay-per-view tent pole, something he assumed only a few years ago would never happen for him.
But it has, especially in the Bay Area. It’s partly about the demographics, partly about his ferociously successful fighting style (he’s 5-1-1 in seven epic fights against future Hall of Famers Marco Antonio Barrera, Juan Manuel Marquez and Erik Morales) and largely about Pacman eschewing the normal paranoia and greed of boxing’s highest levels.
I sat next to him for 30 minutes at lunch Saturday, including a minute of silent prayer. For one of this decade’s best pound-for-pound fighters who has an active movie and music career, he’s about as authentic a human as you’re going to get.
“It’s very important to me to be popular here in the States,” Pacquiao said, “because my goal is not only for that reason . . . but someday, I want to show people that to be a boxer is not about boxing only.
“To show them that we need to be approachable to the people and communicate with the people; and the fighters should know that there’s God in the ring. Not like some boxers, you know, Mike Tyson, ‘I’m going to knock you out!’ “
I cannot be sure that Pacquiao referenced Tyson specifically there, but I thought he said Tyson’s name when I heard it live. Plus, I went over it three times on my tape recorder.
I’m going with the Tyson reference, which, if accurate, is just genius.
If ever there was an anti-Tyson in boxing, it’s Pacquiao, who recently ran for a congressional seat in the Philippines (he lost but says he will run again in 2010), sandwiched early training for this bout around business-management classwork back home and may be aiming for larger things than title belts and $5 million purses.
“He laughs at me when I say this to him, but I tell him he wants to be president of the Philippines,” said Pacquiao’s trainer, Freddie Roach. “Because he wants to better his country. . . .
“That might be the downfall of that goal – they tell me it’s such a corrupt system now. It’s tough to change. But Manny, he’ll try to change things.”
Pacquiao might be the anti-De La Hoya, too, since the restaurant managed to serve everybody else in the large party . . . except the famous fighter.
De La Hoya would have been served first or would have stalked out of the place in a huff. But Pacquiao seemed to barely notice and definitely did not protest. (That was left to Arum, who is excellent at public protestations.)
So I wonder: He’s definitely talented enough to become this era’s greatest fighter, though you do worry about the number of hard shots he absorbs; but is Pacquiao crazy enough to keep going for as long as it will take to join the all-time ranks of Duran, Hagler and Chavez – and jump over contemporaries such as Miguel Cotto and Floyd Mayweather?
Interestingly, when asked what fighter he would choose as a model, Pacquiao picked George Foreman because of his charm and talent. And for Foreman’s multi-career longevity, I’d add.
“It’s so important to me to get records, because it’s an honor for my family – the Pacquiao family,” he said, “to be remembered for many generations.”
He already has made his mark in the Bay Area, and on his opponents, and in his sport. What’s next? That’s the thing with Pacman – you honestly don’t know, and that’s all the fun.
