Manny Pacquiao: How Bob Arum & Religion Rescued Pac-Man from Path of Destruction

Manny Pacquiao was cruising down the well-worn path that goes from mega star to being another poor and fading celebrity making an endless string of increasingly demeaning and ill-paying appearances just to make ends meet. 

He has abruptly changed that path. In a recent article by ESPN's Dan Rafael, the depth of Pacquiao's plunge into vice abyss and his climb out of it is driven home. 

Rafael reported that things had gotten so bad for Pacquiao that he needed to take out seven-figure advances from promoter Bob Arum just to pay debts. It is staggering that Manny would need financial relief of any kind, let alone the seven figure kind. 

This is a guy with such earning power that he was able to get a seven-figure advance from one night of work, or find a place that didn't think it was unrealistic for him to build up a seven-figure debt in the first place. But money can go quickly when someone is living like Pacquiao was. 

You don't have to get very far into the report to realize that Manny's life outside of work seemed to mostly consist of womanizing, smoking, drinking and gambling. All of these things will quickly drain the ol' bank account. 

They also are not the best training practices, or particularly well-suited for marital bliss. So it should come as no surprise that Pacquiao's marriage had become a source of distraction, and not strength. 

Rafael reported that things between Pac-Man and his wife, Jinkee, were so strained that she wasn't even going to go with Manny to his last fight, which he won in a controversial decision to Juan Manuel Marquez.  

Manny apparently was not content to go without her, and the situation consumed him so much that he didn't leave until she would go, which wound up meaning Pac-Man had just 15 minutes to warm up before walking to the ring. 

It doesn't take a crystal ball to see that this kind of lifestyle was going to quickly lead to the demise of Pac-Man. To his credit, he seems to have fully realized this and has made serious changes. Here is Pacquiao from the Rafael's article. 

"

The old things that we were committing over and over in the past, I stopped that. Now I follow and obey the commandments of God. I found my manual to life, the Bible. So I am reading the Bible. I keep reading and reading it.

"

Gone are the late nights of endless vice, and here are the evenings of bible study with his wife. This has left him in far better condition to train and it almost assuredly has not been as big a strain on his bank account. 

This is bad news for Timothy Bradley, Pacquiao's June 9 opponent. While there will be those that wonder if Pacquiao's new since of religion will make him less fierce in the ring, the fact of the matter is that those concerns pale in comparison to a fighter so distracted he shows up for fights at the last minute, and spends his free time smoking and drinking. 

Who knows how long Pacquiao will continue to follow his "manual to life?" If they do, Pacquiao's window of greatness has just gotten a lot longer. As a people age, it is even more important for them to take of their bodies, and Manny is in a much better position to do that now.