Welcome to the Era of Pacquiao!
It’s Pacquiao’s time. This is what Kevin Lole, Yahoo! Sports reporter, had to say after last December 6’s “Dream Match” where our Pambansang Kamao, Manny Pacquiao, without a doubt established himself as the finest boxer in the world today by defeating Oscar dela Hoya in 8 rounds.
As Kevin noted, not only did the Pac-Man beat dela Hoya, he battered him into retirement. Surprisingly, Manny came into the fight a 2-1 underdog, with many people expecting he will have a hard time, maybe even lose against the taller, bigger dela Hoya. Pacquiao had to move weight classes up to face dela Hoya, having fought only once as high as a lightweight and 75 percent of his bouts at super bantamweight or lower. Dela Hoya had fought at super welterweight or middleweight for most of his career. But as we all saw, size wasn’t a factor.
This wasn’t the first time this happened in boxing. Chad G asked this in Answers and evalistinho shared to the community other boxers that did what Pacquiao did, jump 2 weight classes to face an opponent. Of course before the fight so many of our community members asked who will win, Pacquiao or dela Hoya, rjjsuperman was one of them and Ruddiger gave a fairly good answer – it depends on how much Oscar really wants to win but Manny can win the fight. However, Ruddiger thought Oscar will win and he was proven wrong.
I asked the community what they thought will be the biggest factors for the Pac-Man to beat the Goldenboy and jun2lorie shared the best answer – speed, power and heart to fight. And he added that Manny was still growing into his natural weight, which means it’s not going to be an issue if he had to move 2 weight classes up. Indeed this was what Manny displayed last December 6 before a crowd of 15,000 in Las Vegas, Nevada, before everyone from every corner in the planet watching. He dominated every round and nowhere during the fight will you think that he was the underdog.
Clearly Manny Pacquiao had established himself as the best pound-for-pound boxer in the whole world. This is something that all Pinoys know already in their hearts, Manny just needed to prove it again to the world. So what’s next for the Pac-Man? Environment Secretary Jose Atienza Jr was quick to advice Pacquiao to concentrate on boxing and not delve into politics. As you all know, Manny ran for a congressional seat last year and lost badly. Now that he’s in the peak of his boxing career, I wonder if he will consider another run for public office. Our Yahoo! Philippines Frontpage Editor asked this question to the Answers community – after proving he is the best boxer in the world today, should Pacquiao consider getting into politics now? What do you think? Share your thoughts now and let the world know what Manny Pacquiao’s next move should be.







For everyone’s info, the Cottolengo Filipino Orphanage is a non-stock, non-profit religious and non-government organization licensed and accredited by the DSWD and is owned and managed by the Sons of Divine Providence Congregation. Their mission is to give special children a home to live and the possibility to be rehabilitated. In short, they take care of physically and mentally disabled children. Right now, there are 40 orphan boys living in the center and they also help out 45 poor disabled children in the nearby community. All of these children receive free special education and basic medical assistance in this orphanage.