Thomas Hauser: "Pacquiao is the best show in boxing, everything an athlete should be"

It is a fairly long article from good ole' Thomas Hauser http://www.secondsout.com/columns/thomas-hauser/manny-pacquiao-and-the-essence-of-boxing Here are the closing excerpts of the piece: ---------------- Pacquiao is ascending to the summit. It’s ironic that he practices the most unforgiving of sports. Cruelty seems foreign to his nature. Like Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali before him, he has come to symbolize caring and compassion. Meanwhile, it’s a joy to watch Pacquiao ply his trade. He’s the most exciting fighter in the world today and everything that an athlete should be: awesomely talented, a great competitor, respectful toward opponents, and appreciative of his fans. He’s also the best show in boxing. Where Pacquiao goes from here is an open issue. His immediate priority is a run for Congress in the Philippines against the scion of a wealthy political family. It’s an uphill battle with the odds against him; more so than for any of his fights in the ring. Win or lose, Pacquiao is likely to return to the sweet science before the end of the year. When he does, he will remind us all once again of the essence of boxing. “Life,” Matthew Wells wrote several years ago, “rarely comes at you in short bursts of wild mayhem. More often than not, it is a long drawn-out grind that forces you to make thousands of small adjustments in order to keep pointed in the right direction. Boxing, more than any other sport, is emblematic of this struggle. It reminds us that life can be hard and even unfair, but with hard work and dedication, you can, once in a while, achieve something truly brilliant.”