Whether or not this is the PacMan’s last stand, he needs to storm into the Las Vegas night this Saturday with all guns blazing.
For so long the unimpeachable holder of the moral high ground in the most visceral of all games, Manny Pacquiao has let his halo slip.
As the only eight-division world champion in boxing history, his ring legacy is imperishable.
Yet, suddenly and by his own volition, his cherished place in the affections of millions is in jeopardy.
When he blurted out his comparison of homosexuals to animals, the edifice of the prize-ring’s most loveable genius began crumbling beneath those nimble feet.
The left hook is the PacMan’s nuclear weapon but the verbal one he landed to the twin heads of human tolerance and political correctness atomised into self-inflicted wounds.
No longer, as he prepares to challenge America’s wholesome Timothy Bradley for the world welterweight title, are this multi-millionaire’s pay-per-view television numbers going through the roof of the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
No longer is that star-spangled venue sold out weeks before the event. Not with tickets still available 36 hours before what may be the last chance to see a legend in action.
No longer is Congressman Pacquiao a shoe-in for election to the Philippines Senate this summer.
As for the ambition of becoming his country’s president, that along with much else is on hold and dependent in some part upon what is about to transpire in the ring.
Liberal society may find it hard to conceive of a correlation between Pacquaio’s sporting exploits and remarks which would have been better expurgated.
One of his closest rivals for elevation to the Senate put that juxtaposition into context when he asked the Manila government to prohibit the fight with Bradley because victory ‘would revive Pacquiao’s massive popularity during the 90-day campaigning period.’
Such is the reality of this celebrity age.
No longer is Pacquiao welcomed with unreservedly open arms in Los Angeles, the city with a large gay community where he has prepared for these big fights for 15 years in the Wild Card gym of master trainer Freddie Roach.
He is banned from the trendiest shopping mall in Hollywood and a front-page headline is screaming for him to be Run Out Of Town.
Still, an explosion of vintage Pacquiao this weekend and much will be forgiven.
That is likely but not certain. Of late he has let his guard slip, too.
First against repetitive Mexican rival Juan Manuel Marquez, who inflicted a most gruesome knock-out to achieve his first victory in their four fights.
Then in the richest fight of all time when he carried a secretive shoulder injury into battle against his arch-enemy Floyd Mayweather and was duly defeated.
Then, at 37, there have been the distractions. Not only his political career but his charity work, his singing, his acting, his bizarre investment in a basketball franchise so that he could become, at 5ft 5 ? in ,the shortest=ever professional under the hoops.
Finale or not, Roach has demanded that ‘the greatest fighter I have known’ makes this another of his grand nights in the Nevada desert.
The supremacy into which Pacquiao had grown on his rise through the divisions from junior featherweight became irrefutable when he took on the heavier Golden Boy himself, Oscar De La Hoya, and battered him into retirement.
That was almost 12 years ago. After that he continued his relentless climb to the unprecedented heights for such a small man of the classic world middleweight championship.
Now it is back to welter-skelter and another of his persisting rivalries. This is the third joust with Bradley, who won the first courtesy of a decision so outrageous that the angry public reaction almost forced him into premature retirement.
Pacquiao put the record emphatically straight second time around. Now Bradley has a new trainer, former Mike Tyson corner-man Teddy Atlas. That has created a frisson with Roach but it will be a surprise if any change of game-plan suffices to quench the PacMan dynamic in the ring.
Defeat for Bradley will not diminish the respect in which he is held by the boxing fraternity as a home-loving family man who is only too happy to pass unrecognised in the street.
Only spectacular victory can propel Pacquiao towards redemption in the eyes of the wider public.
Remarkably for the power puncher whose KO of Ricky Hatton is a brutally indelible memory, he has not stopped anyone in ten fights. Not since he vanquished Miguel Cotto almost six years ago.
If ever it were time for another brusque termination it is now, with his shoulder surgically repaired and him claiming that almost a year’s inaction has freshened his skills.
The Mayweather defeat was a disappointment, not least because of the tedious monotony of what had been hyped as the greatest show on earth.
But the homosexual controversy has brought sadness to those closest to him, to the tens of thousands he has helped with many of his hard-earned millions, to those of us who have spent so many rewarding hours at his ringside and in his company.
Pacquiao’s statements, like those by Tyson Fury when he gave similar albeit less graphic offence, were drawn from more extreme Biblical references. Both are born-again Christians and as such living proof that there is no-one more zealous than a convert. Pacquiao credits his epiphany for his rejection of a gambling, drinking, womanising life-style and the rescuing of his marriage to the forgiving Jinkee.
Had they remained true to their original Catholic faith perhaps they would have paid attention when Pope Francis made his reforming call for compassion to be shown to those of every sexual orientation and spared themselves all the outrage.
Instead, we are left to remind ourselves of Pacquiao’s extraordinary generosity to the most impoverished of his countrymen, women and children. It is there to be counted in hospitals, schools, rooves over heads and the countless Oriental meals bought for penniless fans who press their faces to the windows of his favourite restaurants.
Even as he sounds like he is recanting on his vow to retire from boxing after this fight ? perhaps because the pre-election polls back home are turning somewhat against him ? we recall also the unfailing charm and the time freely given.
After apologising for any hurt caused, Pacquiao said: ‘Most people know what is in my heart.’
For one, I find it difficult to believe that the overwhelming majority of its contents are anything other than good.
Will he box on, perhaps towards a re-match with Mayweather should all the money tempt him to un-retire?
By way of a clue, let me reprise one of the PacMan’s most notable quotes: ‘Only in death will I relinquish my belts.’
Only in blazing victory can he begin to retrieve his humanitarian reputation.
