WHILE THERE seems to be a fair amount of adjustments and changes being made insofar as the undercard of the Pacquiao-Larios fight is concerned, interest in the main event has not waned.
Manny Pacquiao continues to be top draw because let’s face it, he has never fought a boring fight. Each ring encounter featuring the General Santos boxing icon is bound to be a thriller. That’s just the way Manny is, and we doubt he will ever change.
He will throw caution to the winds, go on with his fiery offensive, and woe to the opponent who gets in the way of one or more of his power punches. If he happens to get hit himself, so be it. But Manny with all the sophisticated training and equipment he has undergone and used, has not changed his basic philosophy: people come to watch a fight, he gives them the real fight.
While his defense has improved vastly under the tutelage of celebrated trainer Freddie Roach, Manny is not averse to taking risks and allowing his opponent to get his own licks in if that is what it will take to set up his own offense. This makes for the kind of fight that guarantees a viewer a parched throat even in the early going.That’s the kind of fight Manny invariably figures in.
Perennial talks about his lifestyle that get people worried, also add to the magic of a Pacquiao fight. Fans are always curious as to how all the distractions: late nights filming commercials, shooting pool, attending movie premieres, cock-fighting and the like, are going to affect his performance in the ring.
So far, Manny has not disappointed and has always mesmerized. In the two early losses in his career that he suffered against Rustico Torrecampo and Medgoen Singsurat, he has managed to pick himself up and come out bigger, richer and more popular than all of his early opponents combined.
That loss against Erick Morales has since been avenged and in dramatic fashion. Still, it was not an easy fight and the fans were again treated to a magnificent ring battle that has catapulted the once penniless young man to heights unimagined even by the people who swore by him in the early years.
While the draw with Juan Manuel Marquez is yet to be settled, no one seems to begrudge Pacquiao his rightful lofty place in the boxing firmament. Instead it has been Marquez who seems to have self-destructed with some bad decisions in and out of the ring.
Marco Antonio Barrera, who was Manny’s first big victim before Morales, has been hemming and hawing whenever a fight with Pacquiao is brought up. That he was soundly beaten by the popular Filipino is acknowledged, but he keeps saying he was not in top condition that night.
Meanwhile, he has just come out of a dubious victory against a fighter who was deemed to be not in his and Pacquiao’s class. Somehow those statements about not being in shape in his loss to Manny sound rather empty.
And so the July 2 boxing spectacular approaches amidst news of Oscar Larios being in the best condition ever, and Manny Pacquiao, packing up his main training and getting a much-needed breather in his hometown of General Santos. But not before hearing about a lackadaisical day in camp the day after a late movie premiere and effects of jet lag.
Once again boxing fans, Filipinos and otherwise, brace themselves for a bruising and action-packed thriller in the ring. Pacquiao-style.
