San Francisco, CA- This will be one of the most difficult written oratories I’ve done in what is my fourth decade of writing for others to read. First of all, I have tremendous respect for not only Filipino fighter Manny Pacquiao, but his countrymen as a whole. Which brings us to the past week, a period of time in which RingTalk.com came under assault by maniacal Filipino fight fans in what amounts to an Internet jihad.
Again, I do not pen this piece with the intent or desire to denigrate the Filipino people, because their masses are kind, religious minded folks that are very family orientated. These fanatical followers of Pacquiao have not only destroyed the “reader’s forum” here at RingTalk.com, they have spewed their hate and vulgarity on every major boxing site, including MannyPacquiao.ph, aka Pacland, the web page that is the brainchild of the honorable Dong Seguya.
Let’s take the time to detail what has got the Pacnuts in a furor. They took offense to an opinion I put forth that Pacquiao has never really fought black fighters. Lehlo Ledwaba, the African that Manny had beaten for the IBF 122 lb. title, he did not fight black per se. Regardless of skin pigment and ethnic origin, Ledwaba’s style was that of a European pug that didn’t excel in any one area. Slow afoot with medium hand speed, although favored going into the Pacman fight, the African was exposed as such while being eaten alive by Pacquiao.
Like the world’s #1 lightweight Nate Campbell said in a recent “Ring Talk Radio” interview, Manny has feasted on Mexican fighters deemed past their peak. And while the intent was not to belittle Pacquiao, one the better fighters in all of boxing, it is a true assessment when you look at the big picture objectively.
Pacquiao took the boxing world by surprise (and storm) when he thrashed Marco Antonio Barrera in 2003. And while Barrera had lost two fights in succession to Junior Jones, these setbacks were attributed to Jones’ style as that of a fast fisted black fighter that could punch a little. For Jones, a former bantamweight (118 lbs.) champion that was handicapped with a glass jaw, this was the zenith of his professional career.
In my mind, Joan Guzman, who recently vacated the WBO 130 lb. crown, is an overall better fighter than Junior Jones sans the soft beard. With fast hands that produce blistering combinations, Guzman’s “style” not only mirrors “Sugar Ray” Leonard, it is one that Manny Pacquiao would have extreme difficulty coping with. This is why, I believe, that Pacquiao did not attempt to clean house at 130 by facing either Guzman or WBA king Edwin Valero, as both pose far greater threats to Manny than WBC lightweight (135) titleholder David Diaz.
Because I voiced the aforementioned, and that Pacquiao had became a “promotional tool” of Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, looking to fight the lesser instead of taking on the best in a manner truly befitting a great champion and the so-called greatest Filipino fighter of all time. I’m not saying that Pacquiao should be fighting stud after stud, what I am saying that the decision to not fight Guzman and Valero was a conscious move by Team Pacquiao to stave off potentially humiliating losses.
For voicing these opinions, hundreds, if not thousands of fanatical Pacquiao fans, now better known as Pacnuts, started the Internet jihad that I mentioned in the opening paragraph. The RingTalk.com blogosphere that was designed to allow fight fans an opportunity to voice rational and PG rated opinions was instead turned into a hateful diatribe filled with racial and sexual profanities illustrating a lack of class and intellect.
This assault directed at Mexicans in general was appalling, as was the attack on me personally. Instead of responding in a debate-like manner, these Pacnuts called me every name that they could, insulting my parents, and calling me a no-good Mexican. To these idiots, anybody named Fernandez is a Mexican-wetback, which is not true. That is akin to somebody saying that all Filipinos eat dog, again, which is not true.
These hateful Filipino bloggers are the lowest of the low. They have painted a terrible picture of the Philippines in general on the World Wide Web. And by their doing so in the thousands, have left many people stereotypically thinking that this is what Filipino people are all about. Nothing could be further from the truth. These people are the Internet version of an uneducated Al Qaida-like group.
And while I want to get mad, one needs to come to the conclusion that these individuals are nothing more than a bunch of ignorant, immature web terrorists.
