MANILA – Manny “Pacman†Pacquiao, acknowledged by boxing experts as the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter today, received yet another big boost in his next championship bout with his Puerto Rican rival in Las Vegas on November 15.
Pacquiao made it as the “cover boy†in the US “Time†newsmagazine edition for Asia which is hit the newsstands of Manila and other major cities in the region this week.
Time hailed Pacquiao as the “latest savior of boxing, a fighter with enough charisma, intelligence and backstory to help rescue a sport lost in the labyrinth of pay-per view.â€
The article, written by Howard Chua-Eosan and Ishaan Tharoor, continued: “In the Philippines, Pacquiao is a demigod. The claim goes that when his fights are broadcast live, the crime rate plummets because everyone in the country is glued to the screen.
“His private life, as well as the ins and outs and ups and downs of his training regimen are tabloid fodder; his much brooded political ambitions are a dilemma many Filipinos feel as existentially as Hamlet’s soliloquy: ‘To be or not be be…a congressman.â€
The Time cover story comes a week before Pacquiao is to meet Puerto Rican world welterweight champion Miguel Cotto at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on November 14 (November 15, Manila time)
As in previous Pacquiao championship bouts, about 20 lawmakers, led by Speaker Prospero Nograles of the House of Representatives, have left or are about fly any day now for the US to witness the bout amid increasing protests and criticisms that what they are doing are “insensitive†and “immoral.â€
Critics assailed these trips cost unnecessary expenses which could have been put to better use to alleviate the plight of millions of Filipinos still trying to recover from the heavy damage, death and construction inflicted by four recent typhoons.
Pacquiao becomes the first Filipino personality to land in the cover of Time after the late global democracy icon president Corazon Aquino, first after leading the 1986 Edsa 1 People Power Revolution that ousted the Marcos dictatorship.
The second was when “Tita (Auntie) Cory,†as she was more popularly known the Filipinos, succumbed to colon cancer after a year-long bout with the dreaded ailment on August 1.
Pacquiao is not the first boxer, however, to make it to the cover of Time. But certainly, he’s in very good company.
There’s Jack Dempsey in 1923, James Tunney in 1929, Max Schmeling in 1931, Primo Carnera in 1941, Jose Louis in 1951, Sugar Ray Robinson in 1963, Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) in 1973, Ali and Joe Frazier in 1978 and Mike Tyson in 1988.
Other great athletes who share the privilege are: Pete Rose, Magic Johnson, Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, Marion Jones, Tiger Woods, sisters Serena and Venus Williams and Michael Phelps.
And while it’s the first time that Pacquiao landed on the cover of Time, it’s not the time he was featured in the same magazine.
Early this year, Time adjudged Pacquiao in its 100 most influential personalities, including the likes of US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, tennis champion Rafael Nadal of Spain and golf champion Tiger Woods.
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