Manny Pacquiao is in urgent need of a check up from the neck up.
His ego may be on the verge of knocking out his id, kid.
Calling all haters, calling all haters.
I know they don?t want to hear it. I know that I will now be vilified by the most extreme Pacnuthuggers.
You know these Manny Pacquiao worshippers. They wear only black.
They live at home with their parents even though they are over the age of 27.
Their only social contacts are with imaginary friends or detached Internet contacts.
They have the social skills of the typical caveman.
They think a ?date? is a fruit you can get at the supermarket.
Some of the more deranged ones have ?Columbine? tendencies.
The only jobs they can land are menial, lifeguard at Zippy?s Car Wash or as a caddy at the Insane Clown Posse miniature golf course.
But I am going on record, anyway. There is no imaginable insult that I haven?t have hurled at me by these lepers anyway.
Here?s my premise: if the Pinoy Idol does not get something measured before he fights plucky Brit Ricky Hatton on May 2, he can lose this high progile.
I am not talking about standard tale of the tape measuring. We all know Manny?s height, his reach, his fist size, his expanded chest size.
I repeat my contention that Pacman must have a check up from the neck up. I say Megamanny?s hat size is the key to winning or losing to the hyperactive slapper from Manchester.
Can Manny wear the same size baseball cap that he wore BEFORE he painfully demolished Oscar De La Hoya, prior to the December night when turned Oskie into a tarnished Golden Toy?
Let me give you an event with more primacy. Thanks to crafty, creative fight publicists, Kelly Swanson and Fred Sternburg (both longtime Washington, DC, political operatives), Pacquiao will parade across the red carpet Monday night in front of the Roosevelt Hotel (7000 Hollywood Blvd., public is cordially invited to watch but get there before 7 pm) in Hollywood.
It?s a short trip, an easy ride, from the Wild Card Gym, the fistic salt mine where Coach Freddie Roach cracks the whip to get Pacman in fierce ?dog? shape, but with the celebrity carpet and the movie premiere searchlights it is a whole universe away from the humble bed Pacman came rose from in the Philippines.
Want more primacy? Pacman continues to humble Type A celebrities of all stripes in the ongoing Time magazine ?100 Most Influential Poll.? If you haven?t voted at least 101 times for Our Hero from Gensan, you should be ashamed of yourself. Click, click, click, to push the National Fist to the top.
Strolling the crimson carpet?pushing past Barack Obama, Arnold Schwarznegger, Tiger Woods and strumpet with a trumpet Britney Spears?having two homeland TV networks fighting tooth and nail to show your bouts to their patrons…again being voted Fighter of the Year by the Boxing Writers Association of America while your professor, Coach F. Roach, again cops the otustanding trainer honor…
All this can go to any man?s head and inflate his hat size if you know what I mean.
I?d be a fool and a liar, which I am usually one of but rarely both simulatenously, if I said I knew what was going on in Pacquiao?s head these days.
(For a great article on Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao, check out Houston Boxing Examiner Marv Dumon’s latest gem at http://www.examiner.com/x-4514-Houston-Boxing-Examiner~y2009m3d27-Draft-2.
He wouldn?t be the first or the last extremely talented fighter to let mental disractions take him off his ?A? game.
I was there in Tokyo with Brother Tyson when he got his face rearranged by an upstart named James ?Buster? Douglas.
That huge upset took place on a Sunday afternoon in the Big Egg stadium in Tokyo. Douglas turned the seemingly-indestructible and thought to be unbeatable Iron Mike into an omelette on the canvas.
Who among us, least of all Tyson, will ever forget a discombobulated Tyson on the floor, straining mentally and physically, reaching in vain for his gum shield so he could rise and fight onward?
I saw Douglas on the Friday before the fight. I wished him good luck knowing he had split acrimoniously with his father-trainer, Billy ?Dynamite? Douglas, and that his mother had recently died.
Douglas, never a shouter, was the picture of a loser to be. I suggested that, if he gave his best, none would criticize him.
Douglas looked at the gym floor and said, ?I hope I can get through the first round.?
No one took a CATscan of Douglas brain between then and the time he did the deed to Tyson but obviously the Columbus, Ohio, boxer decided he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. He decided to go ?all in? as the poker players say.
Hatton will go ?all in? against Pacman. That?s a Hatton habit and that should be most worrisome to Pacfans the world over.
They don?t call him ?the Pride of Manchester? for nothing, you know.
But, if there is a fistic miracle like there was in Japan and if Hatton emerges triumphant, it won?t be because he is the more skilled or more ferocious fighter.
If Hatton hands Pacman a shocker loss, Manny?s record should read like so:
Overconfidence W Pacquiao.
If I was in the Pacman camp, I?d be reaching for the tape measure right now.
This fight isn?t any tune-up but it could be a Pacquiao tune out.
With all the glitter and glamour surrounding his elite status, Manny needs a check up from the neck up.
Hatton can?t beat him alone but Hatton plus a mental breakdown can cause Pacquiao to leave Vegas the way the masses do.
Too much cockiness, a dash of arrogance, is all it takes. It reminds me of Yogi Berra?s observation on baseball, that ?90 percent of this game is half mental.?
If Manny?s in the wrong frame of mind, he?ll leave Vegas a loser.
Hate on that, you closeted huggers.
I never liked shut-ins anyway.
(Michael Marley owns and operates Pacquiao friendly www.boxingconfidential.com. He hasn?t been overconfident since a ring terror named Irish John Coiley beat him like a drum in Boston. You won?t find that one in the records as boychik fought under the nom de ring of Mike Marlowitz.)
