Premature and greatly exaggerated?

“The report of my death was an exaggeration.”  – Mark Twain

This, an often misquoted quip from the famous American humorist Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain (“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”) aptly described the situation of Sen. Manny Pacquiao going into the fight against Jeff Horn. Because of the upset, many of the mainstream American media feel justified in talking like the eight-division champion was washed up, as if he were already retired and had just come back due to some insatiable desire to keep fighting. But if you really think about it, there is so much evidence to the contrary. Pacquiao has done things the hard way, and fortune has, for the most part, favored him, literally and figuratively.

Consider this: Pacquiao started fighting professionally at 106 pounds in 1995. He won his first world title at flyweight (112 pounds) just three years later, already his 25th fight in such a short span of time. In 2010, Pacquiao won the junior middleweight title (154 pounds) in a catchweight fight against Antonio Margarito in Dallas. Margarito was 17 pounds heavier, and five inches taller. After that, Pacquiao moved back down to the more comfortable confines of welterweight. In between, he devastated the lower weight classes, which forced him to keep moving up just to have quality opposition. Consider, too, that Pacquiao even skipped the bantamweight classes altogether. If not, he’d likely have 10 world titles. 

Why are many of the foreign media treating Pacquiao as if he weren’t as great as he really is? 

The shallowest reason is that he hasn’t knocked anybody out since he stopped Miguel Cotto for the welterweight title in 2009. It was a huge fight against a strong, legitimate welterweight champion. The Filipino registered a TKO in the last round, and cemented his reputation as one of the all-time greats, a remarkable feat, considering the size and reach disadvantage he had constantly been at since moving up to fight bigger opponents. But the absence of a knockout does not diminish the quality of the wins. It does not take into account how a smaller man can defeat younger and bigger rivals on a consistent basis. The fact of the matter is, Pacquiao has been winning, and has taken on the best of the best, regardless.

Secondly, they talk about how Pacquiao has lost thrice since 2012, when he suffered back-to-back losses at the hands of Timothy Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez, then lost to Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Pacquiao had not lost in 15 fights, dating back to the first clash with Erik Morales in 2005, or a little over seven years. When you check how many fighters kept winning without a defeat for that long, you’ll come across immortals like Flash Elorde and Marvin Hagler. That is some elite company. Consider, too, that Elorde stayed at the same weight and only lost when he moved up in weight. Hagler, meanwhile, only stayed at middleweight throughout that formidable run. Pacquiao never stayed at one weight for very long.

While we’re at it, let’s take a look at those three most recent losses. The first loss, to Bradley, was a controversial split decision. To this writer, it appeared that Pacquiao had won that fight, though it was closer than it should have been. And Pacquiao vindicated himself with two victories against Bradley in 2014 and 2016. As for the knockout at the hands of Marquez, the same thing happened to Marquez in their second fight in 2008. In the third round, Marquez charged, Pacquiao sidestepped and scored a knockdown. That two-point advantage gave him the split decision win then. In 2012, a visibly bulkier and stronger Marquez was piercing Pacquiao’s defenses with relative ease. For that fight, Marquez’s trainer was Memo Heredia, a key figure in the BALCO performance-enhancing drugs scandal, and a shady figure in many sports. Even Bradley himself said then that “it’s suspicious”, without going into detail. Heredia was said to have been feeding Dinamita a new African herb that greatly enhanced muscle strength and density, but has had no studies done on it yet. If you watch that fight again, you’ll see that Marquez was also burning out, huffing and puffing in that fateful sixth round. He wouldn’t have lasted much longer. The Mexican got lucky.

This brings us to Mayweather Jr. Pacquiao asked for that fight, demanded it, in fact. He did not defeat Mayweather, a naturally bigger, natural welterweight. But then again, nobody has, so there would be no shame in that. Whether or not Pacquiao was injured (which, strangely, nobody reported before the fight), he asked for the fight and went through with it, whatever his condition was at the time.

There are two other reasons why the American media rag on Pacquiao. One is the quality of opponents like a Chris Algieri. But is there anyone else that can be branded comparatively weak? No, perhaps not since Oscar Larios (who at the time had 56 wins and only four losses) in 2006.

The other reason is the supposed diminution in speed. Every fighter slows down as he ages, and the good senator is no exception. But the body of work Pacquiao has put in in the face of his so-called deterioration refutes the degree to which they claim he has declined. He knocked down and beat a taller, much younger Jessie Vargas with his speed, and has been very strategic about how he fights. He has adjusted to the size and youth of his opponents, and has succeeded. Perhaps the Western media could not believe that a full-time professional boxer could be a hard-working elected national official as well as an athlete. And with the result of yesterday’s fight, they will keep believing it, no matter what any other evidence may say. Bottomline is, a loss is a loss.