MANNY! MANNY! MANNY!
GSIS chief Winston Garcia, Mayor Tommy Osme?a, Councilor Yayoy Alcoseba, Bobby Aboitiz, Jimmy Aboitiz, Steve Paradies – all accompanied by their sons – stood and applauded and yelled alongside 15,000 others.
Jericho Rosales, seated beside the angelic Heart Evangelista, was in the fourth row. At the start of Round 2, the reel-life Manny stood up. He cheered the real-life Manny, “Bugbugin mo siya (Beat him up), Manny. Bugbugin mo!”
Bobby Pacquiao held two cellphones on one hand and clasped his wife’s hand on the other. He almost crushed the Nokias in excitement when he saw his brother climb the stage.
In Row 4 and three seats to my left sat Sen. Ralph Recto, four feet to my right was Ai-Ai de las Alas. We chatted. Two rows up front sat Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita and two seats back were Representatives Monico Puentevella and Prospero Pichay.
It was star-studded. It felt like the movies. It was a celebrity affair to watch the movie Supermanny.
Yet, amidst all the hoopla, only one celebrity shone bright that morning…
MANNY! MANNY! MANNY!
To me, the best part was the suspense. The wait. I loved the part when, after the 30-minute gap after Jimrex Jaca bled and won, the group from the lower box shouted, “ME..XI…CO!”
Then, Mexican music blared from the loudspeakers and I left like inside Caf? Havana. Out emerged Oscar Larios. He donned a Mexican dress, almost giggled as he walked under a cloud of hoorays and shrieks that shook the Big Dome.
Then, to the tune of the movie “Rocky,” out emerged the Philippine Rocky. Fans clapped, some cried, many yelled “Manny,” all to inspire and exhort the most famous Filipino today…
MANNY! MANNY! MANNY!
The best part of watching live? You see. You hear. You see sweat jump off the skin and shower the ringside cameramen. You see the mouthpiece fly out of the teeth. You hear grunts, roars, claps, and meows from the pain of an uppercut.
You see blood. Fresh, red and flowing like lava. In Round 3, you see a wobbly and bewildered Manny Pacquiao. You see Larios fall twice on the canvas, all because of an Atari videogame eater named Pacman who nibbled on him, feasted on his stomach, chewed his chin and munched on the Mexican taco. “What a Bloody Sunday,” you see Larios’ lips say.
MANNY! MANNY! MANNY!
How was Oscar?
Seated right behind me was Eric Gomez, the vice president of Golden Boy Promotions, owned by the great Oscar de la Hoya.
I was listening to Eric speak to his associate (in the ninth round) and his words couldn’t have been more correct: “He’s (Larios) just trying to avoid a knockout…which will be a big victory for him.”
True. Having avoided a KO, Larios can go back home to Mexico, greet their new president and say, “Hey, I fought one of the world’s best boxers. I weighed eight pounds more than my usual. I stood with him. Almost KO’ed him on the third.”
Larios flew out of Manila beaten but with head raised. Still, he knew the champion’s first name…
MANNY! MANNY! MANNY!
If there was any “ugly” part, it came in-between rounds and unseen on TV: the round card girls. No, they weren’t ugly. But compared to two years ago when I watched Manny fight the Thai 3K Battery, then they had two of the sexiest girls on RP soil: Diana Zubiri and Juliana Palermo.
Last Sunday, they had two (of the eight) bikini girls whose flabby hips waved and said “Hi, I’m voluptuous!” at the crowd. I’m not kidding. And wasn’t this production by ABS-CBN? Have they run out of actresses? Anyhow, this wasn’t about sexy bodies but a muscleman…
MANNY! MANNY! MANNY!
The biggest winner, of course, is Mr. M.
His dinner of tortillas and burritos with Erik Morales on Nov. 18 is all set. His sponsors are all smiles – from San Miguel Beer to the Extreme Sing-Along to McDonald’s, who cleverly snapped an “M” cap on his head for millions to see and snap a burger.
In all, his company, MP Promotions Inc., was paid $4 million by ABS-CBN. Minus his $1 million prize money, the $450,000 to Larios, the fee of ring announcer Michael Buffer (“$20,000, plus three police bodyguards, business-class tickets, and ‘perks after 6 p.m.,’” said www.Philboxing.com’s Salven Lagumbay) and the loose change for the undercard boxers, you compute the balance.
You know what Manny is doing this very minute?
Singing the words he has so plenty of…
MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!
