Pacquiao Makes the Golden Boy Say "No Mas!"

I arrived in the city of Las Vegas about 4:20 AM Friday morning December 5th, 2008. This gave me about seven hours to check into my room and try to sleep before the big weigh-in.  

It wasn't about until 10:00 AM that I realized I did not sleep much at all. It must have been a combination of me just being excited for the big Dream Match Saturday night, stressed that I still had to sell my friend's last two $1,500 tickets, or maybe a part of me was stressed that Manny Pacquiao was in for a very dangerous fight with a much more experienced, way bigger man who had one of the most powerful left hooks in the sport that could very well put Manny to sleep?

Whatever it was I was now on zombie mode at this point and I attended the   weigh-in with hopes of obtaining some reassurance that my bet of $1,000 on Pacquiao was not a foolish bet. You see for the last three months all I heard from everyone was that Manny Pacquiao was just too small and that he would literally get killed in the ring come fight night.  

You guys already read my article titled: I GOT $1,000 ON PACQUIAO, so you already know who I was backing 100 percent. But I must admit all the "Manny is way too small" talk was starting to get to me. 

At the weigh-in the energy was hyped and the seats were all packed. The host for the weigh-in was comedian George Lopez. George made jokes and talked trash about everything from overweight Latinas to Manny being significantly smaller than Oscar.

The demographics at the weigh-in was diverse, obviously consisting mostly of Latinos and Filipinos. It was a constant shout war between the Latinos and Filipinos backing up their country men by screaming their names at the top of their lungs. Bernard Hopkins even held a contest on which fans could scream louder for their man and he declared the Latinos to be the clear winner.

Both Sugar Shane Mosely and Ricky Hatton also took the stage and gave a few words on the fight as well. Finally three hours later the two main event fighters took the stage to be weighed in. Manny weighed in at 142lbs and Oscar weighed in at 145lbs.

Manny looked strong, very strong, more ripped than his usual always impressive physique on weigh-in day because he had the comfort zone of weighing up to 147 this time. Manny looked focused and confident as if he was ready to fight 15 rounds right there on the stage.

Oscar on the other hand looked drained, not only weight drained, but mentally drained. It was evident that 147 was not a good idea for Oscar to fight at during this twilight stage of his career. Oscar looked lethargic, and hungry not the good kind of boxing hungry but the homeless where is the closest soup kitchen located type of hungry.

I got this same feeling when Erik Morales killed himself to make weight at 130 to fight Manny a couple years ago. By this point my stress over Manny being too small was now canceled out by what I just witnessed at the weigh-in.

I promised my good friend that I would help sell his last two $1,500 tickets (under face value of course) to the fight for him since he was not able to come to Vegas that weekend so I was on the prowl all throughout the MGM Grand lobby.

I randomly came across a bunch of boxing journalists who I respect and admire greatly. I will not reveal their names for I do not want to get them into any trouble but I just had to ask them their honest opinions on how the fight will go down Saturday night. At first they gave me a publicity safe answer.

Then I noticed they had been drinking all night so I asked again and said look now give me a REAL TALK answer and they then began to just pour out all this inside information about Oscar and his camp. In short they basically told me that Oscar only trains hard if the cameras are on and rolling, he does not run, and he only spars eight rounds at most if that and if any of his sparring partners bang him up during a sparring session then they are asked to leave camp at once. One fighter in particular knock out artist, heavy handed Edwin Valero supposedly was very forward about his experiences in this training camp.

After hearing all of this I was now at complete ease. I knew that the HBO 24/7 shows are good at getting its viewers to get emotional and excited and even to make you believe that a fighter is really looking greater in their training camp than they really are.

Every where I went for lunch or dinner who ever I sat next to everyone was talking about the Dream Match and how they felt it was going to pan out. Believe it or not I met about a dozen Australian men, who reminded me of the soccer hooligans in the film Euro Trip, all dressed in a red team uniform that read: "TEAM PACQUIAO." They all unanimously said Pacquiao will crush De La Hoya. 

I then saw the legendary Boxing Historian Bert Sugar with his old school hat and signature cigar posing for pictures and signing autographs right outside the restaurant I was eating lunch at and I just had to run up to him and ask him who he picked to win this fight and he replied right away without any hesitation: "MANNY PACQUIAO". That was it. I was done. I now knew that I had nothing to worry about.

I truly felt that at this point that Manny would take this fight into the later rounds to an easy Unanimous Decision. It wasn't until I sat down at my actual seat for the fight that I found out that literally my whole section was all Pro Manny Pacquiao and even maybe anti-Oscar De La Hoya.

You don't believe me listen carefully to the audio in my YouTube video.  Everyone sitting around me felt that Manny was going to knock Oscar out. In my mind I was like WHAT? Oscar has one of the best chins in the sport. He's never been knocked out before and this was against bigger men, middleweight champions, men who walk around weighing close to 200lbs.

The only time he's been stopped was by Bernard Hopkins from a body shot to the liver and even that was pretty suspect. But I guess if these guys sitting around me felt Manny was going to really stop Oscar than let them believe that.

The first round seemed to start off with both fighters feeling each other out and respecting each others power. Manny made the first move and landed on Oscar. Manny began to turn it up just enough to clearly win the round. Now from round two on it was all Manny landing at will, outboxing Oscar and showing some of the best defense skills and moves I have ever seen from the south paw.

We the fans even got to see flurries randomly when ever Manny felt he saw an opening or he felt the fans needed one here and there. Manny dominated every single round on pure speed, power and aggression. I could not even give one round to Oscar even if I was a shady corrupt judge who was on the payroll.

When round six came around I got a bit nervous for if you watched my YouTube video titled: Oscar De La Hoya Tells King J: I LIKE SIX, Oscar stated in my video that he was going to knock out Manny in round six.

So I knew if Oscar was actually holding back this whole time now would be the time for him to explode on Manny. But I took a close look on the jumbo tron to see Oscar's face and I saw blood and I saw welts on his face and eye and all jokes aside I do not think Oscar would ever let that happen to his pretty face even if he was purposely holding back.

Round seven was by far Manny's most dominating round where he literally threw combos and flurries at will sometimes without Oscar even trying to cover up. A more merciful sensitive referee could have legitimately waived the fight off as a TKO in this round at a couple different moments. This is why all three judges scored this round a 10-8 round for Pacquiao.

Then of course we come to the eighth round where Manny again dominates Oscar with ease. The compubox stats were just ridiculously disproportionate between the two fighters. Oscar appeared exhausted and in pain during the end of this round.

Usually between rounds the jumbo tron shows about 20 seconds of both fighters sitting on their stools with their trainer coaching them and giving them last minute advice, or inspiration but for some reason the jumbo tron was only on Oscar's battered face during the whole time. Oscar looked pissed off, embarrassed, depressed, angry, sad, worried, scared. If I could have put a cartoon bubble coming out of Oscar's forehead at this point it would read, "Why am I doing this for? I am RICH!"

Then out of no where someone from Oscar's corner jumps into the ring waving a towel in the air! What? What the hell just happened? Manny Pacquiao just made the Golden Boy pull a "NO MAS."

This "NO MAS" was even better than the most notorious "NO MAS" of all time when the great Sugar Ray Leonard made the great Roberto Duran "NO MAS" this was up there with a then Cassius Clay making Sonny Liston "NO MAS" on his stool as well.

This was even bigger and better than Bernard Hopkins stopping Oscar because Bernard was the bigger man in the higher weight class and Manny was the way smaller man coming up in weight to meet Oscar. A lot of people, even hardcore fans of Oscar felt that the Bernard Hopkins KO could of been staged, but a "NO MAS" can never be staged a "NO MAS" can never be faked, not even the greatest actors of all time can produce the facial expressions of a champion who's face says it all as he decides he has finally had enough and does not wish to stand up from his stool for any more punishment.

Congratulations Manny Pacquiao! You are my hero! You have proved everyone wrong. You have won over so many fans from all different races, walks of life from all over the world! You are a TRUE CHAMPION. GOD BLESS you for everything that you are and everything that you do. You are the MAN! The BEST POUND FOR POUND!

Watch my YouTube video coverage of the Dream Match:

YouTube: King J Collects On His Dream Match Money

or click this link to view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mftBasux-Q

GOD BLESS,

KING J

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