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At Manny Pacquiao’s present peak - idolised by Filipinos throughout the world and considered to be boxing’s best pound-for-pound exponent before next weekend’s £50m superfight against the Hitman from Manchester, Ricky Hatton - it would be easy to disregard how his long journey began. Before he made his American debut in 2001 on the undercard of a bout involving Oscar de la Hoya, the Golden Boy whom he beat into retirement four months ago in Las Vegas, “PacMan” was another obscure fighter from Asia, an alphabet world title-holder and talented, but easily overlooked by the big players in his sport’s traditional, more lucrative strongholds.
Not that Pacquiao was deterred by indifference. On the streets of Manila, homeless and penniless, he had encountered much worse. Speaking inside his new workplace, the Wild Card Boxing Gym in Hollywood, he says: “Before I got to Manila I worked as a baker back in Bukidnon. I was a child but it was the only way I could put bread on the table for my family. In Manila I was on my own and had to work to survive. I worked in construction, painted houses and sewed clothes in a factory and all the time I trained to be a fighter. Other people may forget this but I will never forget. This is what drives me to be the champion I am for my people.”
This explains why his apartment near the gym has been occupied by more than 20 people at a time over the past couple of months (a conservative count) with sleeping bags spread out across the floor each night right up to his bedroom door.
Pacquiao, brought up a Catholic and still deeply religious, takes his faith and his position as a standard-bearer for his people seriously. Even strangers who turn up at his home in General Santos City in the south of the Philippines, which they do incessantly, looking for money and food parcels, are never turned away from his door. “God has given me a gift and it is my duty to share the fruits of this gift with my people,” he says.
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Freddie Roach, his trainer, often shakes his head in despair that Pacquiao could end up penniless through simple acts of generosity. Members of Team Pacquiao, the entourage who surround the boxer, can pocket $3,000 from their little cash cow this afternoon just by weighing in at 10% less than they did when training camp began.
Pacquiao is preparing to go to war for the 53rd time in a career in which he has secured 47 wins, 35 by stoppage, losing three fights and drawing two. He has boxed only once at lightweight - 9st 9lb - against the durable David Diaz and once more at welterweight - 10st 7lb - when he beat the carcass of De la Hoya, so his assault on the light-welterweight (10st) division which Hatton still rules will yield no automatic conquest, given that he began his career in 1995 as a 7st 8lb light-flyweight. “Speed will be very important in this fight,” Pacquiao declared, echoing the sentiments of Roach, who has predicted that Hatton will not last beyond the third round. “I expect Ricky Hatton to be 100% committed and fast and strong, and I know he has a very strong left hand, which I have to be careful about. But I am the better boxer and boxing is psychological - the quickness of your mind can make all the difference. I have been defeated before, so I know what it is like, but a lot of people in the Philippines are willing me to win and praying for me. The guns are silent in the street every time I fight. There is no fighting, no crime. I would fight every day just for my people, if the guns will stay silent. These are the thoughts I carry to the r i n g a n d t h e y a r e p o w e r f u l thoughts. I am not trying to win this fight alone.”
Hatton, beaten only once in 46 fights and never at light-welterweight, does not walk alone himself, though some prefight assessments of Pacquiao’s prowess have persuaded the Mancunian to suggest that he ought to be making way for Godzilla, so apathetic is the fight crowd when considering his chances. “People are looking at the Oscar performance and suggesting that Pacquiao will finish my career, too, but he won’t,” Hatton says. “Oscar was like a walking corpse that night but I have plenty left in the tank. Manny is in for one hell of a shock when he realises just how much boxing ability and hand speed I have. I can fight going backwards, too, and I know he can’t. He does all of his punching on the front foot. He shuffles in and out constantly but when he punches he’s always coming forward. He doesn’t get leverage on the back foot and, in order to punch on his front foot, he will have to come into my territory.
“Everyone expected Paulie Malignaggi to out-jab and outspeed me last November but I was the one beating him to the punch and dominating. Pacquiao has improved his technique over the years but he’s as easy to hit now as he’s always been and he’s been shaken up several times and stopped twice by body shots. If a couple of flyweights have been able to stop him, what do you think I’ll be able to do, the biggest man he will ever have faced outside of Oscar?”
Alas, little big men come no bigger than Pacquiao, whose swarming attack is “like a typhoon from across the Pacific”. American TV analyst Larry Merchant coined the phrase. Hatton will get to know the feeling.
Not that Pacquiao was deterred by indifference. On the streets of Manila, homeless and penniless, he had encountered much worse. Speaking inside his new workplace, the Wild Card Boxing Gym in Hollywood, he says: “Before I got to Manila I worked as a baker back in Bukidnon. I was a child but it was the only way I could put bread on the table for my family. In Manila I was on my own and had to work to survive. I worked in construction, painted houses and sewed clothes in a factory and all the time I trained to be a fighter. Other people may forget this but I will never forget. This is what drives me to be the champion I am for my people.”
This explains why his apartment near the gym has been occupied by more than 20 people at a time over the past couple of months (a conservative count) with sleeping bags spread out across the floor each night right up to his bedroom door.
Pacquiao, brought up a Catholic and still deeply religious, takes his faith and his position as a standard-bearer for his people seriously. Even strangers who turn up at his home in General Santos City in the south of the Philippines, which they do incessantly, looking for money and food parcels, are never turned away from his door. “God has given me a gift and it is my duty to share the fruits of this gift with my people,” he says.
Related Links
* Khan accepts he may have to face Hatton
Freddie Roach, his trainer, often shakes his head in despair that Pacquiao could end up penniless through simple acts of generosity. Members of Team Pacquiao, the entourage who surround the boxer, can pocket $3,000 from their little cash cow this afternoon just by weighing in at 10% less than they did when training camp began.
Pacquiao is preparing to go to war for the 53rd time in a career in which he has secured 47 wins, 35 by stoppage, losing three fights and drawing two. He has boxed only once at lightweight - 9st 9lb - against the durable David Diaz and once more at welterweight - 10st 7lb - when he beat the carcass of De la Hoya, so his assault on the light-welterweight (10st) division which Hatton still rules will yield no automatic conquest, given that he began his career in 1995 as a 7st 8lb light-flyweight. “Speed will be very important in this fight,” Pacquiao declared, echoing the sentiments of Roach, who has predicted that Hatton will not last beyond the third round. “I expect Ricky Hatton to be 100% committed and fast and strong, and I know he has a very strong left hand, which I have to be careful about. But I am the better boxer and boxing is psychological - the quickness of your mind can make all the difference. I have been defeated before, so I know what it is like, but a lot of people in the Philippines are willing me to win and praying for me. The guns are silent in the street every time I fight. There is no fighting, no crime. I would fight every day just for my people, if the guns will stay silent. These are the thoughts I carry to the r i n g a n d t h e y a r e p o w e r f u l thoughts. I am not trying to win this fight alone.”
Hatton, beaten only once in 46 fights and never at light-welterweight, does not walk alone himself, though some prefight assessments of Pacquiao’s prowess have persuaded the Mancunian to suggest that he ought to be making way for Godzilla, so apathetic is the fight crowd when considering his chances. “People are looking at the Oscar performance and suggesting that Pacquiao will finish my career, too, but he won’t,” Hatton says. “Oscar was like a walking corpse that night but I have plenty left in the tank. Manny is in for one hell of a shock when he realises just how much boxing ability and hand speed I have. I can fight going backwards, too, and I know he can’t. He does all of his punching on the front foot. He shuffles in and out constantly but when he punches he’s always coming forward. He doesn’t get leverage on the back foot and, in order to punch on his front foot, he will have to come into my territory.
“Everyone expected Paulie Malignaggi to out-jab and outspeed me last November but I was the one beating him to the punch and dominating. Pacquiao has improved his technique over the years but he’s as easy to hit now as he’s always been and he’s been shaken up several times and stopped twice by body shots. If a couple of flyweights have been able to stop him, what do you think I’ll be able to do, the biggest man he will ever have faced outside of Oscar?”
Alas, little big men come no bigger than Pacquiao, whose swarming attack is “like a typhoon from across the Pacific”. American TV analyst Larry Merchant coined the phrase. Hatton will get to know the feeling.
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