Asian Journal- The Filipino-American Community Newspaper

"It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, its the size of the fight in the dog that counts." —Mark Twain

A Britishsports writer compares Pacman to a mild-mannered Clark Kent with a boyish smile harmless in his suits and hats, that is, until he steps into the ring. When the bell rings, the smile disappears and the little guy morphs into Superman, a fighter that goes to war, sizes up his opponents, executes a game plan and demolishes them promptly with blazing speed, brutal power and pin-point accuracy. His last 3 foes couldn’t attend the post-fight media conference. They were all in the hospital requiring medical attention. It’s a scary prospect for any challenger.

Manny no longer calls his trainer, Freddie Roach, Coach but has taken to calling him Master Freddie, a mentor-pupil relationship built over eight grueling years of training preparing for increasingly tougher showdowns with bigger, stronger opponents in different weight classes. If one reads the fight predictions given by experts on print and in the blogs, the majority would almost always favor Manny’s opponents to win, citing the boxing credo that a good big man will always beat a good small man. Maybe so. In three exciting fights in a row in the last 12 months, Manny has shown that this truism can be thrown out the window. As Larry Merchant said after the Cotto match, "Speed kills."

It is the size of the fight in Pacquiao that counts, the size of the fight that manifests itself in speed. There is no way of measuring what is within him or what powers the speed and force of his punches that his foes in the ring almost always say they never see coming. That spirit may be as deep as the Pacific Ocean and as high as Mount Everest. But his foes allege, without evidence, in malicious innuendoes to the press, the use of performance enhancing drugs (peds) or steroids to explain it. Sour grapes? Maybe. It’s that old natural human tendency to belittle what they themselves cannot achieve.

There could be a scientific explanation for the Pacman’s incredible power punches in Einsteins’s equation: E=mc2 where E represents units of energy, m represents units of mass, and c2 is the speed of light squared, or multiplied by itself. This equation points out how a small amount of matter can produce a huge amount of energy, as in Pacquiao’s unrelenting fusillade of power punches delivered with a high connect rate. Do pardon the digression. Those of us who need explanation have to have something to sink our teeth into.

Without Roach, there would be no Pacman of this caliber and vice versa. Roach molded his star pupil to a complete fighter —intelligent, lightning fast with his explosive fists and with an in-and-out guerilla footwork. He exudes confidence, ferocity, and relentless aggression. No longer one-dimensional nor predictable, this boxer has developed an impressive arsenal of skills the boxing world has not seen in a long time. His appetite for learning his craft is unquenchable; his discipline, solid and his love for the sport and his drive to bring honor to his country and sheer enjoyment and excitement to legions of boxing aficionados around the world is genuine.

Mark Kriegel of Fox Sports claims promotions featuring Manny suffers from the language barrier but hastens to write further that Manny is polite and well-mannered. His name has seeped into global consciousness because as one other veteran sports writer notes, Manny’s humility is a breath of fresh air, not only in boxing but of sports in general, so different from the brash, trash-talking, chemically altered misbehaving athletes of today. No wonder he has the love and adulation of millions.