HOLLYWOOD—Back at the familiar confines of his bedroom at the gated Palazzo residences here, Manny Pacquiao looked at peace with himself.
Amid the maelstrom wrought by the shocking, controversial and absurd split decision loss to Timothy Bradley that deprived him of the World Boxing Organization welterweight crown, Pacquiao has exuded unusual calm.
Rather than gloat about the public outcry regarding the loss on Saturday (Sunday in Manila), Pacquiao is trying to pacify everybody involved and affected by the scoring anomaly.
“Let’s just forget and accept it (split decision),” said Pacquiao in Filipino. “There’s still November to look forward to.”
According to Pacquiao, who’s staying with wife Jinkee and their four children at their cozy home in Plymouth, Los Angeles, he’s living it up to his promoter (Bob Arum) to sort things out.”
Though Pacquiao and Bradley have verbally agreed to do the rematch on Nov. 10, also at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas, Arum balked after demands for a probe of the judges that worked the 12-round pay-per-view bout escalated all over the world, particularly in the United States and the Philippines.
“Let’s be humble,” said Pacquiao, who was quickly relegated to No. 5 in the pound-for-pound ranking of BoxRec after his loss to Bradley.
Pacquiao said God’s words empowered him to withstand a major test that could have rattled him before.
When Pacquiao lost to Erik Morales in 2005 at the same venue, he was inconsolable and desolate.
Seven years later, faced with the same situation, it was Pacquiao doing the consoling for those angered by the controversy.