Legends. They speak of special people in the past. People who carved feats worthy of a page in history or folklore.
But there are people who became legends long before they are gone.
Count Manny Pacquiao among them.
In the universal sports of boxing, eras are defined by fighters who stomp their class against the competition. Boxers who drew in the horde of crossover fans and became the face of the sports for a long period, often times spanning two decades.
Rocky Marciano and Joe Louis were legends in the post World War boxing renaissance. Muhammad Ali carried much of boxing during the turbulent era of the 60s and the 70s. Sugar Ray Leonard and the troika of Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns and Marvin Hagler in the 80s. Mike Tyson of the yuppies generation of the 80s and the 90s. Oscar de la Hoya at the turn of the new millennium.
Most of them are already among the all time boxing greats in many boxing historians? list. Others are on the fringes.
Pacquiao however is a class all by himself. He is the first professional boxer from the East to crash into the elite circle of fighters that dominated the sports.
He did it not overnight and did not start under the glare and glitz of America. He literally boxed his way from obscurity to stardom, chipping away block by block all the best that stood his way and in the process captured unprecedented eight world boxing titles that even he himself probably did not believe he will achieve or even dreamed of when he turned pro at a tender age of 16 and all of 106 pounds. He is now holding a share of the titles in teh 154-lbs division.
He broke the color and language barriers to become a crossover boxing icon. Better yet a sports superstar.
Pacquiao is now what Tiger Woods is to golf and Kobe Bryant is to basketball.
He is not a media creation. He made media take notice of him and in the process overwhelmed them.
No other boxer outside of America in the modern era has dominated the sports both inside and outside the ring. Lennox Lewis of UK briefly flirted with the American press but he never stole their hearts. Julio Cesar Chavez was largely adulated by the Latinos. Alexis Arguello did not get half the attention that Pacquiao is getting right now. The closest was Duran but it was largely because of his American competitions ? the Leonards, the Haglers and the Hearns who are stars in their own right.
Pacquiao carved his unique niche and solo spot in the sports by fighting and dominating the dominant fighters in their own weight classes. When the day comes, he might even end up as the fighter who fought the biggest number of Hall of Fame boxers.
Pacquiao can now afford to walk away from the sports without diminishing what he has already accomplished. In fact it will only add to his growing legend. When the next generation of boxing writers begins to draw their list of all time boxing greats, Pacquiao?s name will be high above the list and not a few will have him on the top.
