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Pacquiao's success raises questions
November 16, 2009 By WALLACE MATTHEWS wallace.matthews@newsday.com
Quick Summary: Manny Pacquiao's success may lead to questions regarding the usage of performance enhancing drugs.
Manny Pacquiao has come a long way since his first major fight in the United States.
In 2002, as a scrawny 120-pounder, he knocked out Jorge Julio to win the junior featherweight title in Memphis while his family, unable to get seats in the arena - a megafight between Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis was the main event - was forced to watch the bout on closed-circuit television 50 miles away at a casino in Tunica, Miss.
Since then, Pacquiao has won 16 more fights, scored 12 more knockouts, claimed another half-dozen world titles in four more weight classes.
His weight has increased by nearly 25 pounds and his star has risen to the point where, after his impressive 12th-round TKO over Miguel Cotto Saturday night, Pacquiao is now boxing's one and only rock star.
Naturally, that has led some to suspect that Pac Man must be doing something unnatural.
And illegal.
"If it was me, I wouldn't fight him," said Floyd Mayweather Sr., father of the fighter expected to be Pacquaio's next opponent in what could be the richest fight in history. "Whether I could whip him or not, I wouldn't fight him, because things ain't right. I'm pretty sure that's what it is."
"It," of course, is the S-word, as in steroids. And the G-word, as in human growth hormone.
Coming from Mayweather, it is easy to dismiss such talk as a negotiating tactic, or setting up a reason to duck the fight, or to excuse a loss.
Coming from anyone else, it is a fair and legitimate question that needs to be examined, especially in an era in which so many athletes, from ballplayers to bike racers, have proven to be dirty.
As Pacquiao gets bigger, stronger and better at a stage in his life when most fighters just get older, is it that crazy to ask how a singles hitter against bantamweights became a slugger against welterweights?
As my colleague Bobby Cassidy pointed out in his excellent boxing blog, Pacquiao's career arc isn't all that different from that of Barry Bonds, who suddenly became a monster at 37. Pacquiao is a month shy of 31.
Pacquiao, along with every fighter on Saturday's card, was tested for a lengthy list of banned substances, including the hundreds of PEDs prohibited by WADA. The results of those tests will not be known for another week to 10 days.
But we do know Pacquiao tested clean after his previous 10 fights in Las Vegas, including the two most impressive: the night he made Oscar de la Hoya quit on his stool last December, and his destruction of Ricky Hatton in May.
Rarely in boxing history has a fighter carried his punch up the ladder the way Pacquiao has. Not even Roberto Duran, who ruled weight classes from 135 to 168 over 20 years, was knocking out bigger men the way Pacquiao is, and he was known as "Hands of Stone".
Clearly, what Pacquiao has been able to do is remarkable, maybe even unprecedented.
But his spotless track record affords him the benefit of the doubt, and it is possible the explanation is as simple as a good punch in the mouth.
It could just be that for the first time in his career, Pacquiao - who grew up dirt-poor in Quezon City, Philippines, and is said for a time to have lived on the streets - is fighting in the correct weight class.
"All these years, the guy was killing himself to make weight," Pacquiao's trainer, Freddie Roach, told me Monday. "He couldn't eat while he was training and he was very unhappy. Now, he can eat breakfast the day of the weigh-in, and it makes a huge difference for him."
In fact, Pacquiao ate breakfast and lunch before the weigh-in for the Cotto fight, and still hit 144, a pound less than the negotiated 145-pound limit.
"It's a shame but whenever a guy's successful, people get jealous and try to come up with reasons to knock it down," Roach said. "Manny don't need no steroids. He doesn't even know what they are.''
It's been a long, tough trip from the gutter to the big time for Manny Pacquiao. Talk like this only confirms that he has finally arrived.
http://www.newsday.com/columnists/wa...ions-1.1593060
November 16, 2009 By WALLACE MATTHEWS wallace.matthews@newsday.com
Quick Summary: Manny Pacquiao's success may lead to questions regarding the usage of performance enhancing drugs.
Manny Pacquiao has come a long way since his first major fight in the United States.
In 2002, as a scrawny 120-pounder, he knocked out Jorge Julio to win the junior featherweight title in Memphis while his family, unable to get seats in the arena - a megafight between Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis was the main event - was forced to watch the bout on closed-circuit television 50 miles away at a casino in Tunica, Miss.
Since then, Pacquiao has won 16 more fights, scored 12 more knockouts, claimed another half-dozen world titles in four more weight classes.
His weight has increased by nearly 25 pounds and his star has risen to the point where, after his impressive 12th-round TKO over Miguel Cotto Saturday night, Pacquiao is now boxing's one and only rock star.
Naturally, that has led some to suspect that Pac Man must be doing something unnatural.
And illegal.
"If it was me, I wouldn't fight him," said Floyd Mayweather Sr., father of the fighter expected to be Pacquaio's next opponent in what could be the richest fight in history. "Whether I could whip him or not, I wouldn't fight him, because things ain't right. I'm pretty sure that's what it is."
"It," of course, is the S-word, as in steroids. And the G-word, as in human growth hormone.
Coming from Mayweather, it is easy to dismiss such talk as a negotiating tactic, or setting up a reason to duck the fight, or to excuse a loss.
Coming from anyone else, it is a fair and legitimate question that needs to be examined, especially in an era in which so many athletes, from ballplayers to bike racers, have proven to be dirty.
As Pacquiao gets bigger, stronger and better at a stage in his life when most fighters just get older, is it that crazy to ask how a singles hitter against bantamweights became a slugger against welterweights?
As my colleague Bobby Cassidy pointed out in his excellent boxing blog, Pacquiao's career arc isn't all that different from that of Barry Bonds, who suddenly became a monster at 37. Pacquiao is a month shy of 31.
Pacquiao, along with every fighter on Saturday's card, was tested for a lengthy list of banned substances, including the hundreds of PEDs prohibited by WADA. The results of those tests will not be known for another week to 10 days.
But we do know Pacquiao tested clean after his previous 10 fights in Las Vegas, including the two most impressive: the night he made Oscar de la Hoya quit on his stool last December, and his destruction of Ricky Hatton in May.
Rarely in boxing history has a fighter carried his punch up the ladder the way Pacquiao has. Not even Roberto Duran, who ruled weight classes from 135 to 168 over 20 years, was knocking out bigger men the way Pacquiao is, and he was known as "Hands of Stone".
Clearly, what Pacquiao has been able to do is remarkable, maybe even unprecedented.
But his spotless track record affords him the benefit of the doubt, and it is possible the explanation is as simple as a good punch in the mouth.
It could just be that for the first time in his career, Pacquiao - who grew up dirt-poor in Quezon City, Philippines, and is said for a time to have lived on the streets - is fighting in the correct weight class.
"All these years, the guy was killing himself to make weight," Pacquiao's trainer, Freddie Roach, told me Monday. "He couldn't eat while he was training and he was very unhappy. Now, he can eat breakfast the day of the weigh-in, and it makes a huge difference for him."
In fact, Pacquiao ate breakfast and lunch before the weigh-in for the Cotto fight, and still hit 144, a pound less than the negotiated 145-pound limit.
"It's a shame but whenever a guy's successful, people get jealous and try to come up with reasons to knock it down," Roach said. "Manny don't need no steroids. He doesn't even know what they are.''
It's been a long, tough trip from the gutter to the big time for Manny Pacquiao. Talk like this only confirms that he has finally arrived.
http://www.newsday.com/columnists/wa...ions-1.1593060
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