Manny Pacquiao leaves us, but with more questions than answers

As boxing’s only eight-division champion, Pacquiao is revered as a doyen in his profession. The Filipino will go down in the annals of history as one of the greatest boxers. But should he? Steve Luckings reports.

Sixty five fights, 57 wins, 38 by way of knockout, only six losses, two draws and championship belts won in eight divisions.

That’s some record.

Voted into the House of Representatives in his native Philippines in May 2010, few doubt Manny Pacquiao's tigerish determination to rid his country from poverty will see him realise his ultimate ambition of one day becoming his nation's president.

There is the touch of megalomaniac in almost everything he does. A humility rarely associated with any of his peers – least of all his nemesis, Floyd Mayweather Jr – his popularity is universal; he will be given a rapturous send off in Las Vegas when he steps into the ring for the 66th and final time on Saturday evening, facing the American challenger Timothy Bradley for a third time.

No doubt he will get the presidential treatment when he returns home to resume his next career path, hoping to transform his sporting popularity into votes in the senate.

His tale of unfathomable rags – as a starving, 12-year-old runaway Pacquiao earned US$2 (Dh7.3) a fight in Manila, sending exactly $1 home to his mother to care for the rest of his siblings – to incalculable riches – it is estimated he earned upwards of US$120 million (Dh440.7m) losing to Mayweather last year – is so ridiculously rooted in everything boxing tries to project on its naysayers that even Hollywood would think twice before writing a script about it.

Read more:

As boxing’s only eight-division champion, Pacquiao is revered as a doyen in his profession. From scrawny bantamweight to menacing welterweight and all the world titles in between, Pacquiao will go down in the annuls of history as one of the greatest boxers ever.

But should he?

Questions over the veracity of those world titles, and whether a champion can call himself that if he fights for a vacant belt instead of taking a strap of a bona-fide title holder, will dog Pacquiao long after he hangs up his gloves.

He failed the ultimate test to secure his legacy beyond a shadow of a doubt with a majority points defeat to Mayweather 12 months ago. The upcoming fight with Bradley has prompted me to watch repeats of that 12-round Mayweather bore fest, the single richest event in sports history, and each time I give Mayweather an extra round (full disclosure, I had Mayweather win the fight by four rounds first time).

And an unsavoury smell lingers over just how Pacquiao has managed to carry both speed and power from a scrawny 108-pound string bean to a 154-pound demolition man.

Also see: Revisit Chuck Culpepper's week in 2011 on the inside of Mannyland ahead of Pacquiao's final fight

It is true Pacquiao has never failed a drugs test, but his refusal to take Olympic-style testing during five years off on-off negotiations with Mayweather not only caused the veins to bulge out of the heads of every boxing fan praying for it to happen, it fuelled rumours he had something to hide. If he had nothing to hide, why not submit to the same scrutiny almost every other boxer and athlete in professional sport does?

His supporters will point to his almost irrational fear of needles as a reason why. This is a guy who has made a living from a sport where you are legally allowed to kill your opponent in the ring, but he is afraid to man-up to a two-inch needle?

Winning titles in multiple divisions is nothing new; Mayweather was a world champion in five weight classes, after all. But Mayweather’s style never deviated from fighting with a peek-a-boo jab from behind the best defence in the business. Pacquiao, if anything, seemed to get faster the bigger he got. Most fighters sacrifice speed or strength for the other, Pacquiao gobbled up both.

My colleague John McAuley wrote in a previous column that rather than his achievements in the ring, it was Pacquiao’s indiscretions with the tax man, as well as philandering in his private life, that made him more relatable to his fans. His failings made him human, stripping away the “Pac-Man” persona, the charity-giving, time-for-everyone hero that Pacquiao more than anyone has cultivated.

The fight with Bradley – the third in a trilogy – is nothing more than a protracted farewell to a fighter whose boxing career ended in earnest 12 months ago to another man named Mayweather. And he does so leaving us with more questions than answers.

Follow us on Twitter @NatSportUAE

Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/TheNationalSport