Pacquiao: Into the homestretch
You will watch or want to find out, whether you’ve lost interest in his pursuits or have gone weary of his journey.
That’s because like a typhoon, Manny Pacquiao is news and climbing the ring anew on Jan. 19 (Jan. 20, Sunday, in PH) for the WBA welterweight title is great copy. No other Filipino fighter comes close to what Pacquiao has achieved in boxing and his continuing story is still fascinating.
His opponent, the colorful Adrien Broner will help make the fight interesting to watch.
Broner loves to mix it up and there’s nothing more that excites the warrior in Pacquiao than a foe that loves to go toe-to-toe.
Broner is also an intriguing figure. He’s flamboyant and talkative, character traits that help sell a fight. Pacquiao finds the 29-year-old Broner “funny” and flashes that winning grin whenever he’s asked to comment about Broner.
Pacquiao’s sports story churns out more news lines than his political forays. In a way, Pacquiao is the last man standing from a colorful boxing era with many of the other stellar performers already gone from the scene. Oscar De La Hoya, Erik Morales and Pacquiao’s great nemesis, Juan Manuel Marquez, have already hung up their gloves.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. is still noisy along the boxing sidelines, picking up exhibition fights to keep him interested and his treasure box loaded.
There is a lot of buzz about another fight with Pacquiao but that can only happen after the Broner fight and if there’s enough cash to make it worth Mayweather’s while.
The Pacquiao era will be remembered in the same vein as the Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier heavyweight season and the time of Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Marvin Hagler and Tommy Hearns. The Pacquiao stretch perked up boxing in a time when the sport was already being seriously challenged by mixed martial arts.
Pacquiao is in the homestretch of an illustrious career. There’s really no need to rush him to the end as he has remained relatively fit and unharmed through close to 70 professional battles. Pacquiao may not be as lethal as he was during his reckless boxing years but he remains deadly and offers opponents the promise of a sizeable paycheck.
If you can still do what you’re meant to do, then you should still pursue it, no matter what people may think.
