All great fighters have one last great fight; Manny Pacquiao set to dominate on Saturday:
As Manny Pacquiao vs. Timothy Bradley II looms tomorrow night, boxing scribes are itching to pronounce either the death or rebirth of one of the sport’s greatest ever purveyors. Though, as they prepare their fingers to chart the next chapter of Pacquiao’s career, they would be wise to recall history. Many boxing careers have been subjected to prematurely-written epitaphs in the past.
Manny Pacquiao has spent the last few years not adding to his legend, but having that legend ever-so-gradually besmirched by the passing of time. This is a result of a number of most recent endeavors, from his inability to finish a past-it Shane Mosley, to the controversial decision win and subsequent knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez. He had the ability to hit Brandon Rios at will but not stop the young Californian from smiling and of course, the fight that essentially led us to the precipice on which we now stand – that first fight with Tim Bradley.
That night Pacquiao seemed to be reigniting a flame that was flickering with the uncertainty of poor recent performances, but he stole the show with the fast hands, use of angles and relentless punch volume that had enchanted us all throughout his rise to prominence. Then the decision came. The judges thumbed-down the Filipino’s display as Bradley jumped on the ropes and was proclaimed the new champion. Since then, Bradley saw his career stall before eventually finding a way to move to better things, while Pacquiao has had to withstand yet more uncertainty.
Marquez, Pacquiao’s eternal rival, added the emphatic full stop to their series of fights with a stunning one punch knockout that left Manny temporarily without consciousness as question marks surrounded his future. The comeback against Brandon Rios offered Pacquiao a perfect opportunity to rekindle the old fire. Rios – a face-first type of guy – was there to be hit, and hit him Pacquiao did, but the judges were still required to separate the pair. “The old Pacquiao wouldn’t have suffered the ignominy of the scorecards”, the critics cried.
And so Pacquiao finds himself under scrutiny once more. It is worth noting, however, that great fighters rarely go out with a whimper. Tim Bradley may have felt scorned by the public after his much-debated decision win in the first fight, but he has not shied away from ruffling Pacquiao’s feathers ahead of tomorrow night’s rematch.
That hunger that he’s looking for is no longer there and he can’t get it back. It’s gone,” Bradley argued during HBO’s Face Off program. The claim is that years of success and the fame and financial rewards that come with it have stripped Pacquiao’s ferocity to the bone.
It is, in all fairness, a valid discussion. Pacquiao has not shown the killer instinct of his youth in recent times, but that doesn’t mean he cannot be goaded. It doesn’t mean he hasn’t heard the whispers of his demise, and it certainly doesn’t mean he can’t still throw down with the best of them.
A multitude of fighters have been written off in the past, only to revitalize their careers with one last exceptional performance and you don’t have to go far back to look at examples. One of them – Bernard Hopkins – has proven the skeptics wrong so often that it now takes a certain amount of bravery to bet against him no matter who he fights.
It has been said that every great fighter has one last great fight in him, and if there is a word that fits Manny Pacquiao’s achievements in boxing, it is that word – “great”. Only time can tell, but it would be foolish to blow out the candles on Pacquiao’s career before it’s natural conclusion. If there is anything history tells us, it is that those as great as he can never be written off, even when the flame is flickering.
