By Lyle Fitzsimmons

I know we’ve all been thinking it, but it’s high time someone said it out loud.

Here I was thinking that I’d gotten through 46 years, two months and four days – until last Saturday night, that is – with a pretty good handle on what the term “manning up” actually meant.

Silly me. I’d always figured it had something to do with being brave or tough enough to deal with an unpleasant situation. But now that Scruffleupagus has spoken, I’m ready to reconfigure my vocabulary.

Because what it’s apparently meant all this time was do whatever you can do to tilt the playing field in your favor, and then – if things still don’t go your way – feel free to employ excuses as needed.

Case in point, Manny Pacquiao.

Prior to Mr. Max setting me straight over the weekend, what I’d assumed Pacquiao and his team had done before, during and after his May 2 date with Floyd Mayweather Jr. was simple:

1) Consciously decided not to disclose an injury on a routine pre-fight commission form;
2) Unsuccessfully requested locker room treatment for said “injury” shortly ahead of the opening bell;

3) Lost 26 of 36 scorecard rounds to a foe who Pacquiao had claimed was afraid to fight him; and

4) Headed straight to a post-fight press conference to suggest that same foe hadn’t had nearly as much to do with a comprehensive in-ring failure as the injury had.

But to hear Jim Lampley’s bearded accessory tell it, I’d had it wrong the whole time.

In fact, what Pacquiao and Co. had actually done was this:

1) Courageously went ahead with the biggest fight of his career at less than 100 percent, so as not to inconvenience all the folks who’d already booked airfare to Las Vegas;

2) Made a simple “clerical error” on a routine pre-fight form signed by two experienced people;

3) Soldiered on with no treatment for a real injury that they’d attested a day earlier did not exist; and

4) Provided a legitimate case for a rematch based on all the injustice that had been done to them.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s a Downstate/Upstate thing.

After all, Max is from Greenwich Village and I’m from Niagara Falls.

But in my little slice of New York, his idea of “manning up” sounds a lot more like “bitching out.”

Using my Niagara Avenue and Staley Road upbringing as a guide, what it seems to me that Team Pacquiao wanted most was to guarantee that a $100 million fish stayed on the hook, to retain as much competitive advantage as could be mustered without making adversaries wise to infirmities, and to employ whatever plausible denial was available in the wake of a colossal strategic blunder.

And while miffed Max surely hit high notes in a 336-word soliloquy, he didn’t always carry a tune.

Given the postponement/reschedule of iconic fights like Foreman-Ali, Holmes-Cooney and Hagler-Hearns, suggesting the same couldn’t have been done this time is dubious at best. But even if it never got re-signed, righteously insisting that selling damaged products was vastly superior to yanking them from shelves reeks far more of the very money grab Kellerman’s indignant rant had claimed to dismiss.

It didn’t help that he also heaped blame on the state commission, coming to land on a notion that NAC’s “on principle” stand was less palatable than cooperating “with the spirit of the event” – or, in other words, that having rules is all well and good, right up until those with a vested interest say that it’s not.

Perhaps one man’s “sound judgement” is another man’s “go along to get along.”

Or, in this case, perhaps Max is just plain wrong.

While I’m not suggesting Pacquiao’s malady was cooked up in the 60 minutes between post-fight interview (where no mention of the shoulder was made) and post-fight press conference (where it was proffered as Exhibit A for Manny’s losing result), what I am suggesting is that he and his team had a choice to make – and consequences to consider – when the injury and its severity became apparent.

Choice No. 1 was disclose the injury and scrub the fight.

Choice No. 2 was shield the injury and scrub the excuses.

After Saturday night’s replay, Max could have been the one to champion integrity and accountability, while convincing disillusioned fans that there was a legitimate reason to come back.

Instead, he offered refuge in some nefarious in-between crevice, where shielding facts is OK until no longer strategic, heading to the pay window before surgery is justified and seeking sympathy for a predictably subpar performance is right up there alongside truth, justice and the American Way.

As it turned out, just when boxing could have used someone Super, he was just another Yes Man.

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This week’s title-fight schedule:

SATURDAY
IBO/WBA middleweight titles – Inglewood, Calif.
Gennady Golovkin (champion/No. 2 IWBR) vs. Willie Monroe Jr. (No. 2 WBA/No. 24 IWBR)
Golovkin (32-0, 29 KO): Eleventh IBO title defense; Seventh fight in United States (6-0, 6 KO)
Monroe (19-1, 6 KO): First title fight; Seventh fight outside New York (6-0, 3 KO)
Fitzbitz says: The challenger is a slick boxer and a world-class commodity, but he’d be a lot better off if his uncle—who beat Marvin Hagler—could handle this one, too. A quick drama show. Golovkin in 1

WBC flyweight title – Inglewood, Calif.
Roman Gonzalez (champion/No. 1 IWBR) vs. Edgar Sosa (No. 2 contender/No. 9 IWBR)
 Gonzalez (42-0, 36 KO): Second title defense; Held WBA titles at 105 and 108 pounds
Sosa (51-8, 30 KO): Fifteenth title fight (11-3); Held WBC title at 108 pounds (2007-09, 10 defenses)
Fitzbitz says: A 35-year-old Sosa gets to take part in the flyweight division’s breakthrough to HBO’s airwaves, but against a guy like Gonzalez it’ll be little more than a cameo role. Gonzalez in 5

Last week's picks: 2-0 (WIN: Uchiyama, Taguchi)
2015 picks record: 28-7 (80.0 percent)
Overall picks record: 667-230 (74.3 percent)

NOTE: Fights previewed are only those involving a sanctioning body's full-fledged title-holder – no interim, diamond, silver, etc. Fights for WBA "world championships" are only included if no "super champion" exists in the weight class.

Lyle Fitzsimmons has covered professional boxing since 1995 and written a weekly column for Boxing Scene since 2008. He is a full voting member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Reach him at fitzbitz@msn.com or follow him on Twitter – @fitzbitz.