Manny Pacquiao: Are Pac-Man's Recent Troubles Destroying His Once Golden Image?

Manny Pacquiao is a cultural icon in the Philippines.

The world's best pound-for-pound boxer has always maintained a clean image throughout his career and wants nothing more than to return to his home and serve his country when he finally hangs up his gloves.

Unfortunately, there are a number of ugly rumors surfacing around Pacquiao involving misdeeds in his native country.

He was accused of housing a fugitive former politician, and tax officials had reportedly started proceedings against the superstar fighter for contempt.

TMZ now claims there is a lawsuit that indicates the Manny Pacquiao Foundation mislabeled "used clothes" as "relief goods" and have yet to pay the shipping company because the containers were seized by the Philippine officials.

So this begs the question, is Pac-Man's image being tainted by all these legal troubles?

To be honest—no, not at all.

For one thing, all these troubles are happening overseas. Pac's American fans are unlikely to even pay attention to these things until they actually affect his fight schedule.

And his fight schedule, which pits him against undefeated American Timothy Bradley on June 9th, is hardly the biggest of draws.

Bradley may actually be the one fighter in the sport other than Floyd Mayweather who has a legitimate chance to beat the Filipino, but nobody really knows much about the 28-year-old.

He's a great fighter, but he's not a big name. The interest in the fight will heat up in about a month's time, but these accusations and legal troubles will die down.

The only way this becomes anything of concern is if Pacquiao loses or he is unable to fight. Until then, this will all just be more chatter until the time comes to talk about the fight. When that happens, this will all go away.