Manny Pacquiao On The Cusp Of Time Dilation

Six newsworthy items that caught my attention prompted me to lumber out of my winter hibernation blues, greet green spring time, and share with my great BR pals and roving readers my few thoughts on the Pacific Storm.

Here are the events, not necessarily in chronological order.

News No. 1:

Four-division world champion, James “Lights Out” Toney, thinks Manny “PacMan” Pacquiao can knock out Mayweather.

“I’d put my money on Manny Pacquiao to knock Floyd Mayweather out,” Toney told Ace Freeman of FightFan.com.

“I love Floyd and I’m glad he’s doing what he’s doing. But if you claim to be the best fighter in the world, pound-for-pound—fight! Don’t make excuses.”

“I grew up with Floyd Mayweather; we all came from the same block in [Grand Rapids] Michigan. Me, the Mayweather family, Buster Mathis, Tony Tucker—the ‘Hall of Fame’ block,” said Toney, whose great boxing career as a heavyweight was somewhat tainted by steroids charges.

News  No. 2:

Mexico’s three-division champion, Erik “El Terrible” Morales, won another title in his ill-advised return to the boxing ring after two and a half years since his retirement.

According to FightNews.com, Morales defeated former World Boxing Association (WBA) lightweight champion, Jose “Jicaras” Alfaro, of Nicaragua by unanimous decision in Monterrey, Mexico.

The Mexican legend’s 117-111, 116-112 and 116-112 UD victory earned him the vacant World Boxing Council (WBC) international welterweight title.

The 34-year-old Morales now has a record of 49-6 (with 34 knockouts).

Guess what he said at his victory speech. “I want Pacquiao. I want a fourth fight with him.”

News No. 3:

Freddie Roach detonated a small bombshell by offering that Pacquiao may withdraw the defamation suit his attorney Petrocelli filed in a Southern California court against Mayweather Senior, Junior and Golden Boy Promotions. 

Why withdraw it?

Well, Roach gambled it would sweeten the deal. Mayweather must withdraw his adamant Olympic-style blood testing requirement and the suit would be withdrawn in return.

Sounded like simple child’s play to me or the kind of barter system that the Romans popularized. Hammurabi had a stricter combat code. A nail for a nail, a tooth for a tooth.

This clever and well-meaning Roach made a deft move. Very Machiavellian.

News No. 4:

Less than 48 hours later, Koncz, the Pacman Chief of Staff, issued a sharp rejoinder a.k.a. contradiction. Nope, the suit will proceed regardless of a Mayweather swoon, Koncz categorically declared.

You would think that the Pacman camp is Jekyll and Hyde. Or Jerky and Jerky. I wish there was more beef.

Is it all mind games orchestrated by Roach and Koncz, wittingly or unwittingly (for the life of me, who would ever know?), to derail Mayweather psychologically?

News No. 5:

Pacquiao made an announcement at his arrival at the Benigno Aquino International Airport in Manila after his victory over Clottey.

He stated (perhaps to satiate onlookers and his entourage of mother, wife and supporting crew) that he is contemplating retirement based on a promise he had made to his mother, Dionesia, before the Cotto fight.

One more fight after Cotto and he is hanging up his fighting gloves.

That is what he claimed he had told his mom. I believe him, too. Not hard for me. Why?

Well, I would say it to my mom or wife before each fight, if I were a fighter. This one sounded semi-genuine though.

After all, it was a sweeping statement he would declare ala Bonaparte crossing the Russian border, on the eve of another fight he would certainly lose—a fight with an incumbent billionaire politician who has a python-like stranglehold on the province of Sarangani.

Visions of grandeur dancing in his head? I wish my countryman much luck. I do admire and respect his resoluteness in whatever he chooses to pursue, ring-wise or outside of it.

Bless his humble heart. His motives are genuine enough.

News No. 6:

During an interview, Roach commented on Pacquiao’s overt retirement hints by saying that there are still two to three years left in Pacquiao’s boxing career. I believe him, too. Not hard for me.

Why am I citing these news items?

Well, I strongly suspect that there is a rising tide of opinion—covertly abetted by Bob Arum, and Koncz-controlled Pacman camp—being put out on Mayweather to drop his pseudo protestations and meet up with Pacman head on.

The return match clause on his contract with Shane Mosley, while business-savvy, is eerie. But that is another matter to study up on at another time.

I think Mayweather would rather lose first to Mosley than to Pacman.

A double-date with Mosley and a triple-sequel with Pacman, notwithstanding Dionisia's loving protestations, would engulf the boxing world—maybe the world—like Katrina devoured New Orleans. 

My reasons for bringing this news before you? Not that you are not up-to-date with boxing news related to Pacman, I just see a few patterns suggested in the news items I have cited above. I have six of them for you guys.

Reason No. 6:

Morales will never get the chance to fight Pacman for the fourth time. Reason?

No one will watch it.

So why did Morales make such an out-of-tune, arrhythmic noise? Well, “someone” had  asked or “requested” him because such a statement will put more pressure on Mayweather to show his cajones.

If a 34-year-old washed-out Morales would grasp for another opportunity with Pacman, it would show he still has the mojo. Notice that Morales never accuses Pacman with drug use. He simply attributes his two knockout losses to incorrect training and weight struggles.

Mexican fighters, as loquacious as many fighters we have seen, do seem to be able to control their verbal triggers on the bigger issues better than Mayweather, Cintron, and Malignaggi.

• Mayweather does it because of a fear phobia. The artful dodger is great at his art.
• Cintron just goes off with the bandwagon for lack of direction in his boxing career. In short, since there is not much else he can do about it, he might as well just talk rabidly and illogically and aiming at nothing. Well, he hits nothing. Success! He just might get some temporary press, which he did.
• But look what happened to his countryman. Cotto lost badly but accepted defeat like a perfect gentleman; Malignaggi does it to get a fight and huge payday. Wow, he gets to fight a British hopeful and someone from Roach’s stable at that. Talk about Amir Khan closing Malignaggi’s big mouth at fight night. Clever businessman this Malignaggi, I give it to him. Therefore, Mexican fighters have also earned my respect.

Reason No. 5:

Toney trained with Roach and has a great relationship with him up to this day. His cultural roots place him squarely in Mayweather’s company. For a fellow “townmate” and fellow countrymen to run away from a logical fight like Mayweather did based on an unproven and baseless drug excuse is like a personal affront to Toney.

Toney is drawing the line. He wants Pretty Boy to cross the line and to show more cajones. It is like him being abandoned  by a brother while he is fending for himself during a street fight. It is worse than being verbally dissed.

Did Roach and Toney have a prior meaningful conversation that moved Toney to explode with the outburst that he directed at Pretty Boy? I think so.

I don’t think Roach egged him on purposefully, however.

Herr Toney just reacted like water would flow with gravity.

Reason No. 4

Arum and Koncz may have an invisible partnership.

I do not know how deeply or how recently the partnership was cemented. But it is apparent that Arum planted him as a “mole” within Pacquiao’s camp. Not for evil reasons but to protect Pacquiao and Arum leveraging his own vested interests in the cash cow.

Does it not confound you of where Koncz came from?

Roach allegedly was the one who fessed up to making  the “mistake” of introducing him to Pacquiao. There is an unbearable lightness of something here, or an irritating heaviness of nothing.

What do you think?

The audacious claim from Koncz regarding the non-negotiability of the court case is a slap on the face of Roach who had declared otherwise less than 48 hours earlier. 

Were these two conflicting statements characteristic of a “disunited” Pacman camp?

Of course not. 

Were these apparently divisive statements contrived up and orchestrated together in order to confuse the Mayweather camp?

Who would ever know the truth?

Arum is the master craftsman of psychological warfare.

It reminds me of the confusing mixed signals coming out of the allegedly fractured Pacman training camp in Baguio prior to the Cotto fight. Bravo, these guys are professional psy-war experts. They almost got me.

Did it help confuse the Cotto camp? Well, as a matter of fact, it did. Cotto’s inexperienced young figurehead trainer unraveled coming into the fight.

Remember his contrite gestures toward Roach at the end of the fight?

Reason No. 3

The contradictory statements from Roach and Koncz is a devious ploy (only Koncz probably knows the real depths of its murky deviousness since Roach is relatively a straight shooter) to cajole the Mayweather camp into honorably reversing their abortive blood testing crusades.

If you remember this scene from Godfather Part 1: Fredo (John Calzaghe), the weak-minded middle brother, present during a discussion between his older brother Sonny (James Caan) and a rival mob group, butted in to contradict his brother’s negotiation talking points, while being helped along by attorney brother Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall).

This paved the way for the rival group to swing in toward Fredo’s soft-line stance after concluding that there is a split within the family.

Since they liked Fredo’s proposition a lot better, they plotted to have Sonny removed from the negotiations.

They had Sonny killed with the help of an insider—a brother-in-law—whom Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), exacted a vengeance on by having him murdered on his way to becoming the new Godfather in Part 1.

He also had Fredo killed in Part 2 of the series. But that is another story to share about at another time. Let’s get back to Pacquiao.

Reason No. 2

Pacquiao’s pronouncements regarding Clottey as his last fight was meant to appease his troubled mother.

Dionisia was at the Cotto fight and saw the physical punishment her son received. Topping it off was the busting of his right ear. How would that affect the internal calibration of his singing?

Will we ever know safely sooner or dangerously later?

Even Clottey, as coyly protective as he was with Pacquiao, had exposed the dangerous life of a small fighter going up against a huge fighter.

Who knows what might have happened if Clottey had thrown more punches from the get-go?

I would think Pacman would still have won by a decision but it would be much closer and Clottey might have severely bloodied up Pacman to the horror of his own mother and loyal fans.

I also believe that this retirement musings is a measure of his misguided confidence that he will win in the coming election. He will lose it simply because the people want him to continue fighting. 

Every Filipino sportsman before Pacman who parlayed their sport career into an elective political position had done so after they had retired from their first glorious career.

It was like earning a lifetime achievement award or something. 

They did it without spending mega millions, which is what Pacman, I genuinely fear, may be now doing. One-hundred million pesos is like loose change for a dollar multi-millionaire.

Many have suggested that Pacman enter politics at a divinely appointed time after he has hung up his fighting gloves—which I believe is now. For heaven’s sake, take your money and run, before an accumulation of blows renders you like Roach.

Fifty plus fights, no matter how one responsibly slices it, are concussive on the brain. Filipinos, like any other constituency, do not want a leader talking like the ground is trembling under their feet.

I have had bad moments listening to Reagan during his retirement.

I have had bad moments listening to Muhammad Ali.

I sometimes cringe at certain points when I listen to a good, intelligent, even articulate guy like Roach talk.

I do not ever want to see my sports hero Pacman, elected or not elected, talking like someone whose wind under his wings was taken away and is unsteadily walking around like a motor-less duck while laying the golden egg.

Does Pacquiao really think he will win in the coming election?

If that is the case, that may have prompted him to issue a premature remark about Clottey being his last fight. But he seems to contradict himself by repeatedly evoking the team mantra saying that he wants the fight with Mayweather very badly. Freudian slip or psy-war?

Reason No. 1

Here again is the presumed title of this article: Manny Pacquiao On The Cusp of Time Dilation.

BR brothers and accidental readers, I am sorry for putting you through this, but the Reason No. 1 will have to be called off for another posting.  It is too technical and too long to cover in one sitting.

But I can give you a few websites from where to study the unlikely term, if you will.

They have got the information I will use in breaking down and illuminating Reason No.1 for you in the coming sequel.

I apologize for giving you homework.  In a perfect world, there is no such thing as home work, but boxing isn't a perfect place. It is just a difficult paradise.

For your referencing on Time Dilation:

http://www.thebigview.com/spacetime/timedilation.html (reader-friendly)

http://library.thinkquest.org/C008537/relativity/math/math.html (reader-friendly)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation (very technical)