Smarter, stronger, Pacquiao showed heart

Heart is what makes a man real “conqueror” in victory. Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao’s dominance of the hard-hitting, pressure fighter Brandon “Bam Bam” Rios was awesome.  The same “old” Pacman is not only back, he is back smarter and stronger.

Pacquiao did not knockout Rios not because he could not.   After round 10, I knew he would not.  Not that he didn’t have the power to knock out a durable boxer, he just had the “courage” to refuse doing it to an apparently losing, hurting and helpless opponent. Though, blood-thirsty, nape-sucking fans craved for more; and they meant savagery, forgetting that boxing is a sport, not barbarism.

Excessive, unnecessary violence in the ring is perhaps the darkest side of boxing and Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) which pictures the ugly part of man.  Boxing or MMA is a game of competition, not carnage.  Pacman stated immediately after he won, “God gave me strength.”  And it was certainly not for him to murder a boxer.

And be aware, Russian heavyweight Magomed Abdusalamov’s condition worsens, having been put in a medically-induced coma after his fight with Mike Perez of Cuba last Nov. 2 in Madison Square Garden. Despite having won the bout, Perez could not rejoice fully for one main reason: “Mago is in my thoughts and prayers and I hope he recovers quickly.  He fought like a true warrior, I’m happy to be victorious but my main concern is for his health.”

Recall that the young skinny boxer Pacquiao was moved to tears and was inspired to turn pro in boxing by the death of his close friend Eugene Barutag, also a native of General Santos City, on Dec. 12, 1995. Barutag collapsed in his corner in the final round and never recovered, allegedly due to the referee’s “oversight” to stop the fight in round four.

The Pacquiao-Rios fight was a Pacquiao-Margarito spectacle over again in the manner by which Pacman caused swelling and cuts in the face of Rios and wherein compassion was the reason it turned out to be “just” another lopsided unanimous conquest for the Filipino icon. Margarito was a bloody mess when Pacman asked him in a later round, “Are you ok?” Pacquiao pleaded with referee Lawrence Cole to stop the fight because how could he inflict further punishment on an opponent with both eyes almost completely closed and already with a broken orbital bone?  “I did not want to damage Margarito permanently,” Pacquiao defended in an interview.

Who could have said it better than Pacman himself when he reasoned out right after the Rios mauling: “Knockout comes when it comes. Boxing is not about killing each other”? Alas, and who can say it worse than a known Pacquiao ally (not his trainers) who got exasperated over Pacman’s dissent to KO Rios and blurted out in Tagalog:  “This is wrong, boxing is boxing. You are not supposed to hold punches under whatever circumstance.  Go for the kill”?

True enough, Pacman maintained his being human when he intentionally “missed” to knockout “Bam Bam,” proof that he made real his word to pray for him.

The boxer has a heart.

—RENI M. VALENZUELA,

renimvalenzuela@yahoo.com