Philippine boxing hero Manny Pacquiao has thrown in the towel on Twitter after coming off worse for wear in a bruising scrap with online critics.
Peeved boxing hero Pacquiao deletes Twitter account
Pacquiao, currently in training to defend his World Boxing Organisation welterweight title against Shane Mosley in Las Vegas in May, deleted his month-old account on the microblogging site on Tuesday.
It came after followers criticised the absence of Pacquiao, who is also a member of the country’s House of Representatives, from parliament as MPs debated whether to impeach the country’s top anti-graft prosecutor.
The last straw apparently came after Pacquiao, using a Blackberry, commented on the debate on Monday from his training base in the northern Philippine mountain resort city of Baguio.
“I’m watching impeachment trial very interesting topic good night everyone thanks,” a page capture of the tweet showed, before he gave his verdict remotely via Twitter: “I vote NO! and I can give my explanation thanks”.
His Tweets attracted immediate criticism about his skipping the debate.
“To hell with @congmp,” ranted one follower @RAndRat, using Pacquiao’s Twitter account name that combines his legislative title and initials, accusing him of running for congress “when you know you’d barely be present”.
Press reports said Pacquiao replied in the vernacular in unparliamentary language: “Why don’t you go and complain to your bald grandfather hahahahaha”.
But by Tuesday the boxer went on the defensive and closed his account, which he had only opened in February.
“Sorry everyone but it all ends here I am deleting my account thank you very much to all your support,” came the last, unpunctuated, ungrammatical post.
While he gave no reason for deleting the account, Pacquiao had previously threatened to quit after being ridiculed and criticised by followers for using poor grammar while Tweeting.
The 31-year-old, widely regarded as the best “pound-for-pound” fighter on the planet, dropped out of high school as a teenager due to poverty before boxing brought him fortune and global fame.
Now a multi-millionaire, he won a seat in parliament in May last year representing the remote, impoverished province of Sarangani.
His aides could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
