When people ask me for my favorite athlete I?ve ever covered, I sometimes answer Manny Pacquiao. I?ve said that less in recent years, because it?s harder to embrace this version of Pacquiao, with his homophobic rants and his political alignment with Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines and a perpetual abuser of human rights.
But Pacquiao, before he became a full-time politician, was something else. Magic, mostly. Unlike anything I?ve seen in almost two decades writing about sports. That Pacquiao climbed divisions the way most people climb stairs, winning titles at featherweight and lightweight and welterweight, collecting belts in eight weight classes. That Pacquiao bloodied Oscar De La Hoya, savaged Ricky Hatton and all but reconfigured Miguel Cotto?s face. He won fighter of the decade in the 2000s as much for how he fought?his style bloody, unorthodox and unrelenting?and who he fought (everybody), rather than his record, which now stands at 59-7-2.
Pacquiao will add to that mark on Sunday in Malaysia, when he faces another past-his-prime power puncher in Lucas Matthysse. The fight could be exciting. Pacquiao might win. But all that misses the larger, more important point, which is that Pacquiao doesn?t need this fight and shouldn?t have taken it. There?s nothing more for him to win in boxing and so much more, exponentially more, that he could still lose. Like his long-term health, for starters.
In 2009, I spent six hours in Pacquiao?s apartment in Los Angeles with his publicist Fred Sternburg. We waited that long for Pacquiao to come downstairs. He never did. His acolytes cooked food and did laundry and cut his meat and competed for the most coveted space in Pacquiao?s orbit?the foot of his bed, where the person most in Pacquiao?s good graces slept each night.
I had just started to cover boxing for The New York Times, and yet it was obvious, even then, that the people closest to Pacquiao were worried about him. They were worried about the bouts he had fought and the punches he had taken?and that was before Juan Manuel Marquez knocked him out cold in 2012?and the people who used him and the money he gave away. At the height of his career, one of his closest advisors, Michael Koncz, told me that Pacquiao?s downfall, if there was one, ?will be his kindness and generosity.?
?At some point, it?s going to catch up to him,? Koncz said then.
And it has. Right about ? now. It has been nine years since Pacquiao won a bout by stoppage. It has been almost a decade since he won fighter of the decade. It has been a year since he stepped into a ring in Australia to fight Jeff Horn, losing a horrendous decision that only masked the real takeaway from that night: Pacquiao was no longer an elite fighter, regardless of how many rounds he took off Horn. He?s back because he needs the money, meaning that Koncz was right.
Every step that led Pacquiao from his prime to here was predictable. It?s boxing, more or less. We see it all the time, often at the end, as we lament the events that lead fighters into desperate circumstances, ill-advised comebacks, lopsided beatings, one last fight. It?s always one last fight.
This was Pacquiao this decade: Fewer fights. Worse opposition. Upset losses. The long-anticipated but six-years-delayed meeting with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in which Pacquiao hurt his shoulder while in training and hype triumphed over skill. Then, the rumors that Pacquiao needed money. His split with longtime trainer Freddie Roach. His supposed resurgence under new management.
This is Fallen Fighters 101, and the next steps are the worst and most impactful, the most long lasting. Imagine if Pacquiao tops Matthysse and decides to step in the ring with Terence Crawford. That won?t end well, not for Pacquiao, not against any of the top welterweights, not versus Errol Spence Jr. or Keith Thurman or even Danny Garcia. Best case: Pacquiao finishes those bouts on his feet. Worst case: he further damages his brain.
Pacquiao will turn 40 this December. He already has a second career, as a politician in the Philippines, and he has long stated his desire to become his country?s president. He has fought in 455 rounds and 68 bouts and more than one bloody trilogy. And he did so coming forward, seeking action, absorbing blows in order to land the hardest punches. He has won belts and millions and the adoration of fans around the world. That should be enough. But it never is.
