It’s Manny Pacquiao’s birthday, fight freaks, so what better time to look back and appreciate anew his extraordinary career and celebrate all the ‘Manny Moments’ that make Pacquiao a one-of-a-kind superstar. Some made us nod in reverence or gasp in awe, while on occasion, others made us shake our heads in embarrassment or pity. The PacMan’s career is primarily one of incredible success, but along the way there were some valleys which, of course, only make the peaks that much sweeter. When you add it all up, there’s no doubt Manny Pacquiao is as worthy of celebration as any other boxing superstar. For proof, look no further than these twelve unforgettable ‘WTF’ moments. Check ’em out:
12. Jan. 26, 2006: The Mexicutioner ArrivesBefore Mexican Style, there was The Mexicutioner. After Pacquiao won a super bantamweight belt from Lehlo Ledwaba, on two weeks notice, mind you, he embarked on a journey of destruction against Aztec prizefighters. He knocked out Emmanuel Lucero in three, outclassed and stopped Marco Antonio Barrera over eleven, and dropped Juan Manuel Marquez three times before earning a controversial draw.
Then came Morales. While Manny Pacquiao’s first encounter against El Terrible was a dramatic battle that saw him drop a clear decision, it also set up one of the Filipino’s biggest wins, when in front of a packed Thomas and Mack Center in Vegas, he enacted revenge on Morales. Pacquiao dropped the Mexican great twice in the tenth, gave him the worst beating of his career to that point, and stopped him for the first time ever. The outcome moved Larry Merchant to call Pacquiao a demi-god, a “combination of Ali, Elvis and Bruce Lee.” After we managed to lift our jaws up from the floor, the rest of us just called him effin’ amazing.
11. May 8, 2004: Lightning Strikes Thrice The opening three minutes of Manny Pacquiaos’s rivalry with Juan Manuel Marquez still represent perhaps his most brutal display of aggression against an elite talent. Marquez was taking his time, mostly retreating and feinting, trying to figure out Pacquiao’s timing, when boom! a left hand explodes on his face and sends him to the canvas. The Mexican gets up, decides to bring the fight to Pacquiao, only for the southpaw to unleash another combination and boom! there it is again, that freakin’ left fist square on his nose sending his ass to the floor.
Surely it couldn’t happen a third time, right? Think again: with Marquez’ back to the ropes, Manny fires another left, and again the Mexican crumbles, his nose bloodied beyond recognition and his brain rattling in confusion: “What the hell just happened!?” Manny Pacquiao: that’s what happened. “Juan Manuel Marquez hasn’t seen anything like that!” cried Jim Lampley on the HBO broadcast as Dinamita walked back to his corner. “Who has!?” retorted Larry Merchant without missing a beat. And no, that the Mexican maestro came back to eke out a draw doesn’t detract one bit from the “Holy-shit!”-ness of that first round.
10. Nov. 16, 2009: A Time For Hope November of 2009 will forever be remembered as the peak of Pacquiao-mania, when fascination with the Filipino enveloped not only his native Philippines, but practically the whole world. Within days of his historic victory over Miguel Cotto, Manny’s face graced the cover of Time magazine and he was also named one of that publication’s ‘Persons of the Year.’ It’s not often a boxer’s fame holds the same currency in all countries and we really have to go back to Mike Tyson to find a name as recognizable on a global basis as that of Manny Pacquiao.
But in fact Manny drew more comparisons to Muhammad Ali than to Iron Mike, as he was both beloved and respected the world over. His name became synonymous with hope for millions: his fellow Filipinos hoped to see the Pacman cement his status as a worldwide ambassador of their country; fight fans hoped the ascension of Manny Pacquiao would provide boxing a much needed boost; and everyone hoped to see a confrontation for pound-for-pound supremacy with a returning Floyd Mayweather Jr. It’s anyone’s guess when we might ever again see a boxer hold that kind of global appeal.
9. July 20, 2019: “One Time” Falls To A 40-Year-Old It won’t go down as the most scintillating of Manny Pacquiao’s performances but it was better than anyone had a right to expect. And for those who viewed Manny’s refusal to retire with trepidation and dread, this was not a match-up they were looking forward to. After all, if Jeff Horn could give Pacquiao so much trouble two years before, and if, at times, Manny’s legs looked like they were stuck in quicksand during his win over Adrien Broner, then clearly there were reasons to be concerned as the Filipino marvel set to face a legit top talent with his 41st birthday less than six months away. No one could refute that Father Time was on Thurman’s side.
But when the final bell rang, what was even harder to refute was that Manny Pacquiao had won. And, all things considered, had looked fantastic in the process. In round one he sent Thurman to the floor with authority. In round five he battered him and bloodied his nose. In round ten he almost decked Keith a second time with a vicious body shot. And in the final round it was Pacquiao taking the fight to the younger man and finishing with a flourish as he added yet another unforgettable moment to his amazing career.
8. Nov. 13, 2010: Margarito MauledFollowing the Joshua Clottey letdown, Manny Pacquiao climbed up in weight to meet the largest foe he’s faced to date. In fact, many expected the Tijuana Tornado to land some serious leather on the smaller Pacman, though not many gave him a chance to win outright. And the Mexican did connect with some heavy artillery in round six, when he capped off his best stanza with a monstrous body shot that made Manny grimace in pain. Nevertheless, this would prove a mere footnote in what became yet another dominant and fearsome display from Pacquiao. By the end of the night Margarito’s orbital bone was broken, his right eye swollen to comical proportions, and his career dumped into the dustbin of history.
Many considered it rightful punishment to the Mexican for the shenanigans that preceded Margarito’s fight with Shane Mosley almost two years prior. Others just reveled in another amazing Manny Pacquiao show like kids watching a Disney-sponsored fireworks display, enjoying the endless stream of stinging rights and exploding lefts that rendered Margarito’s mug almost unrecognizable. That Pacquiao left a former titlist who outweighed him by seventeen pounds and towered above him by a full five inches in a condition resembling chopped liver made everyone sit up and reassess just how formidable a fighter the little Filipino was.
7. July 2, 2017: Sting Operation Virtual unknown Jeff “The Hornet” Horn, along with over fifty thousand rabid Australian fight fans, welcomed Manny Pacquiao into Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium for a welterweight title fight largely seen as a cash grab for the Filipino. Fast forward twelve bloody, action-packed rounds, and what we got instead was one of the most controversial, most talked-about decisions of recent times.
Most observers saw Manny Pacquiao emerge as the clear winner in a tougher-than-expected fight, but the judges awarded the hometown hero a decision that stripped Pacquiao of his title belt, cuing ESPN’s Teddy Atlas into a trademark, desk-pounding rant that became even more memorable than the fight itself. Atlas topped it off by confronting Horn about how and why he had lost the fight, telling him he didn’t deserve the judges’ nod in what he deemed an unmistakable home decision. Even by Teddy Atlas standards, this was bold to the extreme, and in fact many speculate that ESPN’s top brass was so unimpressed that this was the real reason they decided to part ways with the voluble trainer.
6. November 15, 2003: A Barrier Felled Pacquiao’s first fight with Mexican star Marco Antonio Barrera represents a momentous occasion in the Filipino’s career, as his stoppage of the “Baby-Faced Assassin” validated the Pacman’s credentials beyond all doubt and confirmed his membership among boxing’s elite. A three to one favorite, Barrera was riding high after victories over Naseem Hamed, Erik Morales and Jonny Tapia, but Manny twice knocked down the experienced warrior and pitched a shutout against a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer.
Barrera himself knew from early on he was dealing with more than he had bargained for; for proof look no further than the knockdown he suffered in round three: Pacquiao fires his trademark one-two, landing the left squarely on Marco’s chin, putting the Mexican on his butt. Barrera then sits forward, puts his arms on his knees and lowers his head, a fitting tribute to Pacquiao’s phenomenal talent.
5. November 14, 2009: Chopping Up Cotto Arguably the single greatest performance in the amazing career of Manny Pacquiao. His overwhelming domination of the third best welterweight in the world at the time–in his first fight at the weight–moved Bob Arum to proclaim him “the greatest boxer I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen them all, including Ali, Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard.”
Sure, Arum’s statement, like everything he says, was more than a little suspect, but given how high the boxing world was on Pacquiao in the aftermath of the Cotto win, the Bobfather’s comment accurately reflected the feelings of both fans and media-members who had witnessed a lethal combination of speed and power unlike anything in recent memory. To refine Arum’s argument, the victory over Miguel Cotto made Pacquiao look more like the second coming of Henry Armstrong than anything else: a guy who could move between weight divisions with unbelievable ease and not only defeat anyone he faced, but do so with dominance.
4. May 2, 2015: Shouldergate Given all of Pacquiao’s brilliant performances and thrilling battles, perhaps fans could have found it in their hearts to forgive the Pacman for the monumental egg he laid in his fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. But in boxing things are seldom that easy, especially when the so-called “Fight of the Century” was also the biggest cash-grab of all time. No matter how beloved a fighter might be, fans who pay to see him perform expect at least a modicum of entertainment for their dollars.
When Pacquiao, one of the most entertaining pugilists of his era, failed so spectacularly at giving the public their money’s worth, after years of waiting for MayPac to happen, it felt like an unforgivable betrayal. Fans were only further incensed when Manny blamed his performance on a shoulder injury, as it confirmed that they had shelled out a ridiculous amount of cash for a match in which one of the participants was nowhere near his optimal fighting shape. On the biggest stage of his career, Pacquiao fell embarrassingly short of the mark.
3. Dec. 8, 2012: “
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