FOR all of Manny Pacquiao’s 55 professional fights, I have only seen him live once. In 2006, when he tattooed the face of Oscar Larios over 12 rounds at the Araneta Coliseum.
The bleachers of the Araneta Coliseum were barely half-full because of the prohibitive ticket prices. I was told some people were allowed in midway to the main event for free. Which still did not fill the cavernous 20,000-seater 40-year old coliseum.
The adrenalin rush of watching championship fights live and at the ringside to boot is inexplicable. The ringside seat allows you to watch the nuances and every details of the fight that could turn you a boxing judge overnight.
You can tell which fighter is hurt in furious exchanges. You can smell the flailing sweat each time the head of a boxer is snapped back by a punch. You can smell the blood the gushes out of their cuts and you can hear the thud of a body falling into the canvass.
But sometimes this could be quick it is over before you could tell what happened.
On the flipside, that front row seat also deprives you of being able to review the fight sequence except those slow-motion highlights that are shown during in-between-round breaks.
That is why seconds and coaches are always on their toes watching the fight develop.
Not once or twice had I approached the corner of one of my trainer-coach friends to point out how his ward could effectively deliver the punches needed to win.
Such is boxing that you sometimes duck you head and flail you arms every time and simultaneously with your favorite boxer when he cock and unload his punches, as if you were that boxer atop the ring. You become very animated that sometimes you forget you are out there to watch and not become a participant.
Just imagine how hard it is for judges to be removed from their biases given that boxers they will judge in a fight – the likes of Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr – have already made an imprint on their consciousness.
Which leaves us the question: is the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight worth the wait and worth seeing live?
No true-blooded lover of the sports will want to miss this kind of event. This rarely happens in a lifetime and only once or twice in a generation of boxing fans.
When this fight is being compared to the first Ali-Frazier fight, to the Leonard-Hagler encounter to the Holyfied-Tyson saga, you bet this will be a smash hit.
For one, since the mythical pound for pound king title became popular and widely acknowledged, no top two fighters in the list fighting in the same weight division have fought each other.
No immediate past and present kings of the pound for pound title have also actually met each other, either.
At stake is a page, if not a whole chapter, of boxing history.
Both future boxing Hall of Famers will also fight for what probably will be the biggest grossing boxing bout of all time.
And for every Filipino, this could potentially be the last they will see of Manny Pacquiao fight.
Win this one and Manny will take home as much as US$50 million in gross pay, more than a hundred times enough to live in a lifetime of comfort, his children included.
I have missed several fights of Manny because the US embassy refuses to grant me a visa. I hope this time the consular officers in Manila will be compassionate enough to consider that this is one last chance to be at the ringside of history.
