LAS VEGAS – A boxer’s skills erodes a lot quicker in this crazy roulette called boxing, like no other sport offers. Here today, gone tomorrow (but millions richer); the peacock today, is a feather dust tomorrow.
There is a tremendous fascination in every fight, in the multi-level on which it is played and the relative fluidity of commerce.
It is a brutal, abominable game – the human beast fighting itself. Yet as much as you condemn it, boxing always excites in the end. When you’re there, you get more anxious, until you find yourself caught up in it, taking part, urging them on! A few minutes afterwards, you’re ashamed that you let go!
Inside the bigger than life Thomas and Mack Center, when Bob Arum brought the fight to an unannounced crowd to a capacity of screaming spectators from all over the world, it seems to presume that boxing in his helm is indeed going places even away from the casinos.
On the evening of the big fight everything collided for attention: the flashing bulb, racing on and off — bizarre and blinding — and fans out to prove there is no Pacquiao fatigue.
Now on my 9th year of boxing coverage, it still gave one a distinctively heady feeling of being on a stage. Like a carnival, its flamboyance and excitement, and extraordinary vigor, the brawl was noisy and chaotic. Everyone was on fire as Pacquiao dropped Vargas. It was the first time in his professional career to hit the canvas, with a straight right in the second round.
The announcement Pacquiao’s retirement after he beat Timothy Bradley in April was never taken seriously by his fans. He however, backed off those claims in the ring afterwards. After all, didn’t he reconsider his options?
But seven months later, even with his day work as Senator back home, he was back fighting Vargas. His brilliance and legacy says, it has always been more who he fights, than any belts he might still collect. He already has an eight division world championship in his resume.
A mixture of cheers and boos were heard from the arena last Saturday night as Mayweather Jr. was seen taking his ring side seat with a retinue of body guards. His presence was instant material for columnists.
He just appeared, and he wasn’t even promoting a fight. Questions rose, creating conversation of him making a return, perhaps going further he might actually have to answer the call of a second edition with Pacquiao. His record stands at 49-0 and should he be inclined to get back into another fight for real. Boxing sport buff figures such a fight would occur in May or September.
It is said that while Mayweather’s skills showed little to no sign of eroding, but everything will show wear and tear at some point.
We asked Mayweather immediately after the fight what he thought of the winner’s performance. He smiled and said, “Not bad.”
Boxing hopes his appearance is a sign of things to come?
At his post fight statement, the champ said of his next fight: “I don’t know who my next opponent will be…I will fight the people I want.”
I said, “Senator, give us a hint…Senator, is it the guy who was sitting at the ringside earlier?” He only chuckled.
In the last nine years, I’ve covered the title bouts of Pacquiao. He is still subject to the same changing winds that move him inside or outside the ring. In some bouts he fought with the killer instinct, but in some he tasted the salty pains of injustice. Through it all, he showed more than physical strength — the resilience of the spirit, in the easy smile with gracious ease before strangers. A boxer whose success seemed practically ordained. And everytime he does that celebratory shuffle on his feet after the final bell, the crowd goes into a deadening roar!
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