TWICE I missed watching a Pacquiao boxing fight which now holds every Filipino?s deep attention because live media make it possible for anyone to watch the fight as though at the ring side.
It was Pacquiao-Marquez 2 that I missed first. I couldn?t stay home to watch TV because I had an appointment. But even then, I heard a live coverage of the fight over the radio of the cab I took.
But even without having seen or heard the fight on television and radio, the sporty event was also in the feel of the day?where did the traffic go, it was quiet everywhere right into midday! In the US, as a brother wrote us, you could recognize every Filipino home in Salinas where a passerby could hear Pinoy families scream in delight whenever Manuel Pacquiao made a dramatic hit with his paw.
Last Sunday (Philippine time) on the Pacquiao-Marquez 4 fight, Dionisia watched the TV coverage replaying but it was as if she were in the ringside when she saw his son knocked out.
The second time I missed to watch a Pacquiao-Marquez fight was last Sunday (Saturday Las Vegas time). In the beginning, I was set to watch over GMA and I refused to shift to the Internet or any other TV station. I also didn?t open text messages from friends. I was set with early lunch to watch a Pacquiao dramatic win.
But then the househelp (who was listening to the radio) knocked on my door and said in her usual voice, which is just a bit above a whisper, ?Pilde si Pacquiao, mam.?
And it was like I was also hit. Thus, I put off the TV covering the under card fights and took a nap.
What makes a Pacquiao fight different from the fights of previous champions like Pancho Villa who won the Universal World Flyweight Championship? How about the winning of NYSAC World Middleweight Champion in 1939, Ceferino Garcia? In the 1950s came into the boxing ring Cebuano boxer Gabriel ?Flash? Elorde who earned the World Super Featherweight Champion title in 1960.
Media makes young and old women watch big fights as though by the ringside. Thus, when a champion loses his title these days, fans in more than the usual male number get scared, angry and hurt. As for Pancho Villa, Ceferino Garcia, and perhaps Flash Elorde?their stories have only been handed down in the family from grandfather to grandson.
Then, Manuel ?Pacman? Pacquiao came into our life.
There are now more fans of Pacquiao and Nonito Donaire because people can watch them fight without getting out of town or paying entrance.
The Philippines has gone a long way in amateur and professional boxing. In the Summer Olympics, Filipino professional boxers got five out of a total of 9 medals. The Philippines ranks within the top 10 in the world in professional boxing winnings.
It?s said that in the old communities in the islands of what is now the Philippines, the natives had ?suntukan? or bare-hand fighting. But it was probably during the American era when a couple of American brothers Eddie and Stewart Tait, brought to the country in 1902 carnivals and horse-racing. To attract attention, the guys taught the natives western boxing lessons and set up the Olympic Boxing Club in Manila. It was in 1921 that boxing was legalized in the country.
Then Manny Pacquiao came along as top winner, with media rendering him a real person in the life of Filipinos. You enter a room and you hear and see him talk in TV interviews, as though he were talking to you.
In last Sunday?s fight, Pacquiao was knocked out in the sixth round in a non-title fight against Manuel Marquez in a fourth bout. Later in an interview, you saw him cry for having ?let his country down.?
All the news was about him. On TV, radio, blogs, social networking sites, friends and strangers are saying to Pacquiao: go for another fight, enter politics seriously, listen to Dionisia and Jinky cry and retire, be Catholic again.
The issue is more than boxing, it?s within the overwhelming touch of media.
The boxing champion himself, the boxers, the fans, co-Filipinos, wives, daughters, relatives can?t help but move on (to the next fight?).
