Random Tribute: Um, Manny Pacquiao?

“For nearly 12 rounds, Cotto was like a guy
locked in a dark room
with a hundred swooping bats.”

- the LA Times' Bill Dwyre, in a nice “show the reader, don't tell the reader”
journalistic moment, describing what it's like
to be Manny Pacquiao's personal punching bag.

I don't get it, because I'm a girl who does not care for young men of color from poor nations (or poor neighborhoods in rich nations) beating the living hell out of each other in front of a rapt cigar-smoking audience like some kind of gross animal show, but somehow Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao has become quite the compelling figure in apt. 302. And it's not just because he spectacularly reminded us all that the dude with tribal tats always loses. It's because:


- Pacquiao has a foundation focusing on education and health care in the Philippines, and based on what my research tells me (7 minutes on espn.com), he seems to be a real stand-up dude and a sweet and humble man. I've always hated boxing/I somehow like boxing because of Pacquiao = cognitive dissonance on a Monday morning. Fun.


- Pacquiao had a rougher life than all of us and still smiles. A lot. Almost all the time (thanks again, espn.com!). He has peddled flowers and doughnuts for a living, sold fish he caught in the ocean. He grew up without shoes in the Philippines. He ran away from home when he was 14 because his father ate the family dog. His father ate the family dog. Just making sure you saw that.

(“STFU” – everybody in the world, to me, next time I complain about the lines at the grocery store, because my fellow shoppers are holding me up from driving in my functioning car back to my lovely apartment where I get a good night’s sleep, eat fresh food, drink clean water, and talk to my loving family members every damn day. I’m awful sometimes, just awful.)


- Pacquiao is a 5'6" superhuman. Says the NY Times, he does crunches while trainers pound his abdomen with a bamboo pole. He “dabbles in darts, basketball and billiards. He has a photographic memory, learned to play the piano in one week and, when he is not training, often sleeps only three to four hours a day.” He's also the body-dropper, the heartbeat-stopper, child-educator plus head-amputator, spins a web any size, heals the sick, can make a cow jump over the moon, and once shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.


- Pacquiao's trainer Freddie Roach is a nerd and is not to be fucked with. I'm pretty sure you do not, in fact, want a piece of this.


Roach is little and wears glasses and has Parkinson's but knows how to teach men to topple other men in the ring. This combination of nerdy and thuggy doesn't make sense, so, duh, I love him. Before his trainer days, Roach was gonna be a botanist or something? (A tree surgeon). Love that. Also, he looks like Alton Brown from the Food Network. Love that too.



Now there's some sort of post-Cotto situation in which Floyd Mayweather is acting pouty and attempting to call out my precious Manny. I've heard of this Floyd Mayweather, but I don't know if people think he is good or bad at fighting (although I'm guessing since I've heard of him, he's probably good). I do know that the name Floyd is pretty kick-ass, so whatever.

Because boxers have to taunt each other like 7th-grade girls before getting into the ring, Mayweather said, “Manny Pacquiao doesn't say anything directly about fighting me because he might just know it's not a fight he can win.” OH SHIT, SONNN. SHOTS FIRED.

It's like “Ether” without all the gay taunts!
(although, let's be honest, those are probably coming.)



Bob Dylan - “Hurricane.” Not the “you can call me slurricane” Hurricane, so calm down. It's The Hurricane, whose guilt or innocence shall not be debated here. He's innocent, 'cause Dylan says so.


mp3.


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