I CAUGHT Manny Pacquiao on TV on Sunday. And what a guy, indeed, this boxer known from GenSan to Afghanistan as the world pound-for-pound king.
He said a mouthful while he was the sole guest of Chino Trinidad and Christine Jacob in a new TV program at GMA-7 aptly called “Game!”
Trinidad was the former commissioner of the defunct Philippine Basketball League while Christine is a retired, bemedalled swimmer.
Not to brag but I had strongly endorsed Trinidad for that PBL post after it was offered to me.
It’d kill my column-writing, so I turned it down--politely, of course.
“You are a very gentle person when not atop the ring fighting,” Christine told Pacquiao in Tagalog. “But when in a fight, you appear like almost a beast. Why?”
“It depends on who my opponent is,” Pacquiao said in Tagalog. “If, before a fight, my opponent appears bad, I’ll never think twice about trying to beat him to a pulp. But if he has shown respect for me, if he has shown some good virtues towards mankind, I’ll not be inclined to hurt him that badly.”
As to his fight against Oscar De La Hoya in 2008, Pacquiao made quite a stunning revelation.
“De La Hoya has been my idol,” said Pacquiao. “He remains my idol today.”
“But how come you battered him in 2008?” Chino asked.
“He did something to me before the fight that I will never forget,” said Pacquiao.
“He sent me a pair of gloves before we met, and he wrote on the gloves, ‘I will knock you out!’ That got my goat!”
Hearing that, Chino nearly fell off his chair.
“I didn’t know that!” he said.
Pacquiao hit De La Hoya at will in that fight en route to scoring a one-sided eighth-round TKO when Oscar, his face almost rearranged grisly, surrendered before the bell rang for Round 9.
Then Pacquiao was asked why he knocked out Ricky Hatton so soon--in the second round.
“Because he boasted I couldn’t knock him out at 140 pounds,” said Pacquiao.
Against Antonio Margarito, Pacquiao said he took pity in the latter rounds “as he had no more fight in him.”
After his 12-round win, Pacquiao said the classic, “Boxing is not about killing.”
Here’s to a living legend.
Source: http://www.sunstar.com.ph
