WHEN Manny Pacquiao takes to the ring on Saturday night he once again becomes boxing’s centrepiece attraction.
Yet the last two occasions he has fought here in the Nevada desert city of Las Vegas he has provoked more searching questions than the violent answers he had become accustomed to giving.
Should he have been awarded the decision against Juan Manuel Marquez, the man he meets here on Saturday, when they fought in 2011?
Should he have lost to Timothy Bradley earlier in the year?
Perhaps more importantly for Pacquiao – and even for boxing – was whether Manny had lost the magic that had made him a crossover superstar, even before one factored in his singing, acting and political careers.
It’s been more than 10 years since I covered my first fight in the USA and not one individual fighter has astonished me more than the Filipino whirlwind Manny Pacquiao in that time.
I remember watching on in amazement when he ransacked De La Hoya and stopped him in a huge upset wondering when Oscar was going to land the left hook to take out the ‘smaller’ man. It never came, of course, in one of my most memorable ringside experiences.
I was in Texas when he routed Joshua Clottey, too, and back in Las Vegas when he broke down and battered Miguel Cotto. I recall the after-party over the road at the Mandalay Bay where, donning bandages to cover a swollen ear, he performed a concert to a a couple of thousand fans. (One assumes they were boxing fans and not there for the singing!)
These were exciting times.
Here we had a fighter not just attracting viewers because he was brilliant but because he was exciting to watch.
It was a colourful, brutal honeymoon period.
Now, however, the number of casual fans he attracts has likely dropped off and those who watch hope that not only traces of the old magic can be found but that Manny might even have an arsenal of new tricks.
If he does, and he can finally unleash the blistering version of the force he was a couple of years ago on to the stage against Marquez – finally – as he did against Cotto, Margarito, Clottey, De La Hoya and Hatton, then there might be some of the excitement about a certain big fight in 2013 that we have grown weary and sick of talking about in 2012.
