By Ronnie Nathanielsz
Photo © Chris Cozzone/FightWireImages.com
WHILE it would be presumptuous to compare emerging ring sensation Rey “Boom Boom” Bautista with Filipino ring idol Manny Pacquiao, there are some very commendable and common traits in both young men that surely lift the spirit and fill our hearts with respect and admiration.
In the ring, both are warriors. But even the respected boxing patron Tony Aldeguer, who has shown remarkable care and concern for Bautista and all the other fighters in his famed ALA Gym, is quick to dispel any comparisons saying, with all sincerity, that “there is only one Manny Pacquiao. He is truly one of a kind.”
It’s a sentiment wholeheartedly shared by World Boxing Council founding secretary-general Rudy Salud, who, together with Aldeguer, guided the career of Oriental Pacific Boxing Federation champion Z “The Dream” Gorres, but was forced to relieve himself of the responsibilities because of a serious heart ailment from which, with God’s blessings no doubt, he has recovered remarkably well.
Salud, who was secretary-general of the WBC when the late Justiniano Montano Jr. was its president, remembers the era when the late, great Gabriel “Flash” Elorde reigned as world junior lightweight champion for nearly seven-and-a-half years. Elorde, Salud recalled, was an excellent boxer and a decent and caring human being outside the ring. In essence, a true role model worthy of emulation.
But despite all the shortcomings of the comparatively young Pacquiao, who will turn 28 on Dec. 17, which is the age when Elorde beat Harold Gomes of the United States in a spectacular seventh-round knockout before some 30,000 wildly cheering fans at the inauguration of the Araneta Coliseum to win the title, Salud said Pacquiao is extra special.
To him, there has never been as exciting a fighter and as devastating a puncher as Pacquiao and Filipinos “should be proud and thankful that he came along in our lifetime.”
The internationally known boxing commentator Larry Merchant said when he first saw Pacquiao demolish Lelohonolo Ledwaba to win the International Boxing Federation junior featherweight title at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, he was reminded of the great Elorde.
“Here comes another Elorde,” said Merchant who added that Pacquiao was a charismatic fighter with deadly punching power and in his own estimation was an even bigger name than Elorde.
Both men, in their time, stirred a renaissance in boxing. At the peak of Elorde’s career, many more young men took to the sport while fight nights at the Big Dome would easily draw 15,000 fans for any given card. There were many other Filipino boxers, who rode the crest of Elorde’s popularity. including another southpaw and like Elorde a decent young man, Rene Barrientos, who later became WBC junior lightweight champion.
There were others such as world junior welterweight champion Pedro Adigue, flyweight champion Bernabe Villacampo, followed by Erbito Salavarria, Ben Villaflor, Rolando Navarette and many others.
Today, as the Pacman phenomenon grips the soul of Philippine boxing, new and promising young men step into the ring with one goal in mind—to emulate Pacquiao.
The common thread that has run through the fabric of the fight game in the Philippines and indeed most parts of the world particularly countries like Mexico, is that the young men, who stepped forward and laced on a pair of gloves came from among the poor, sometimes the poorest of the poor.
Pacquiao himself had a hard life as a young man selling pan de sal to help his mother Dionisia feed the family after his father left them. He was a good student and Dionisia, who is a deeply religious lady, wanted her son to become a priest, but Pacquiao had an urge to become a boxer. He started as an amateur in General Santos City before coming to Manila to find work and then worked out at the gym of Polding Corea in Malabon. The rest is the kind of history that enlightens our lives.
Bautista himself doesn’t wish to bask in the comparison with the Pacman, even though the great Oscar de la Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions introduced him as the next Pacquiao in the pre-fight press conference for his battle with Brazilian super bantamweight champion Giovanni Andrade last Sunday. Bautista has consistently said he is no Pacquiao, saying: “Manny Pacquiao is Manny Pacquiao, Boom Boom Bautista is Boom Boom Bautista.”
In short, he wants the distinction made because, like he has said many times in the past, Pacquiao was the one who paved the way and opened the doors for all Filipino boxers and he was eternally grateful to him for this.
Bautista’s childhood had a great deal of similarity with Pacquiao’s. His father was a poor fisherman and his mother was a housewife taking care of eight children. Bautista recalled that his neighbors used to look down upon them and sometimes scorn them. Just like Pacman, who used his poverty as a challenge to break out of its shackles and give his family a taste of the good life, Bautista was fired by the same compelling desire.
He still is his parents’ boy. Bautista finds it hard to stay away from home while training at the Wild Card Gym of the celebrated Freddie Roach and often gets homesick. But he has learned to quickly snap out of the mood by putting in his mind the fact that the sacrifices he makes today will bring him—and his family—their just rewards tomorrow.
Every time a fight is over, the first people he rushes to embrace in the ring if it’s held in the country, are his mother and father and when he fights abroad the first people he greets on TV with his eyes welling with tears are his parents and of course his countrymen, who have supported him all the way, just like they stand behind Pacquiao no matter what.
Pacquiao, with years of experience fighting at the highest competitive level in the boxing capital of the world—Las Vegas—as well as such commanding venues as the Staples Center in Los Angeles, is more mature and confident in his post-fight proclamations. But he does, in the privacy of his dressing room or hotel suite, call his mother to pay his respects like a good son would. In more recent years, his achievements have helped bridge the seeming gap between Dionisia and her former husband and they appear to come together in a public bond that has been fettered by Pacquiao.
Pacman has taken good care of his parents and his brothers and sisters. They no longer live in want. He has built a nice home for his mother and continues to take good care of his wife Jinkee, their two sons and a newly born first daughter, whose baptism will coincide with Pacquiao’s birthday and the blessing of his palatial new home, which reportedly cost over P30 million.
He has invested in some real estate in GenSan, including apartments he has built while he also owns a sprawling farm of about seven hectares in Sarangani, where he breeds top class fighting cocks, many of them imported from the US. Pacquiao also purchased the old, rundown L&M Gym, which was where he truly punched his way to stardom in training and to which he holds a sentimental attachment. Pacquiao acquired the gym from his one-time, part-time trainer Lito Mondejar, who carried his belt into the ring and did other chores for Pacquiao, but has now been shunted out of the picture by the new centurions, who have wormed their way in and sweet-talked themselves into his confidence.
These include a coterie of politicians, who gravitate toward Pacquiao, basking in his glory as though they were there when he first broke away from the bondage of his poverty and carved a name for himself in his series of ring wars.
At this stage, even the hard-hitting host of the worldwide radio show “Ring Talk,” former Golden Gloves champion Pedro Fernandez and “The Godfather of HBO Boxing” in Larry Merchant have expressed concern over what is happening to Pacquiao’s multi-million dollar earnings, aside from the contractual mess he finds himself in, thanks to a bunch of advisers who, according to his management team head Shelly Finkel combined “arrogance with bad advice” which can be disastrous.
Appearing on “Ring Talk” last Dec. 3, Merchant said what Pacquiao is being ripped off for “is not the promoter’s problem, it’s his problem. Pacquiao supports a bunch of people, gambles, it’s all on him.”
Merchant added: “Pacquiao made $7 million this year approximately in his own purses and at the end of the fight last week, he walked away with $700,000 of a $3-million purse, gambled some of it away and he’ll take an advance on his next purse.”
Although Fernandez got his numbers wrong at first, when he claimed that Finkel and lawyers Nick Kahn and Keith Davidson were getting some 35 percent of Pacquiao’s purse, he showed his class by quickly correcting the figures when probably informed by Finkel about the real score, which we’ve known all along. Finkel gets 12 percent while Kahn and Davidson split 8 percent and trainer Freddie Roach gets 10 percent, which Pacquiao insisted upon some years ago no matter what his purse is, in a clear indication of how much he values what Roach has done for him and how much he feels for the trainer.
Fernandez believes that despite his initial feeling that Pacquiao doesn’t need a manager since he is already a made fighter and the hottest fighter in the world at that, he has since realized that Finkel has been an asset. Fernandez concedes that if Pacquiao had not been with Finkel, he highly doubted that he would have been able to straighten out some of the serious problems he faced.
Regrettably, there are some individuals around Pacquiao, who share the original opinion of Fernandez that Pacquiao is big enough not to need a manager.
Of course, the problem with this scenario is that they want to grab a piece of the action. Period. It’s not that they care for Pacquiao and can protect his interests. They are only after his money and this is about to blow up in their faces as Pacquiao begins to take a real hard look at his predicament. With Finkel and Roach set to arrive next week, indications are they will sit down with Pacquiao and hopefully straighten things out, which may eventually mean that the people, who lobbied for Pacquiao to sign with Top Rank’s Bob Arum, would feel the devastating force of a knockout punch.