By Jerry Izenberg/Columnist Emeritus
on September 01, 2014 at 5:39 PM
LAS VEGAS — Manny Pacquiao lives with an unanswered question mark. Geography plays no role. It doesn’t matter whether he’s in Macao or Manila or Las Vegas or on his way to the Wild Card Gym in L.A.
In the backroads of his mind, Manny Pacquiao is shadow boxing with a phantom, and there is no timekeeper, and no bell. He can see him. He can hear him. He finally even believes he can understand him.
But he cannot lay a glove on him.
Wherever he goes, sooner or later, he is asked about Floyd Mayweather, Jr., and about the greatest fight that never happened. In two weeks, Mayweather fights Marco Maidana here in a rematch of what could have been his closest fight. In November, Pacquiao is back in Macao to meet Chris Algieri, who holds the WBO welterweight title.
If form holds, neither fight will answer Manny’s question.
Bob Arum has just announced both camps are holding highly secret talks. Since he publicly announced them at least three times in 48 hours, these discussion are as about as secret as the recipe for ice cubes — if, indeed, they are talking at all.
From a business standpoint, Arum says next year, in terms of public interest, the shelf life of the fight will shrink to five months — not much longer than a supermarket bottle of sour gherkins. This, of course, is a negotiating tactic.
So the beat goes on.
But one man’s professed declining interest can be three-quarters of the world’s Filipinos’ obsession. There are approximately 90,000 Filipinos living in the Greater Las Vegas area. It seemed as though all of them packed the Venetian Hotel and Casino on Friday waiting for the return of their champion.
So this is the way it was by the time he arrived. Three or four deep, they packed the lines that began at the entrance they call the Grand Colonnade, and wound for more than 40 or 50 yards into the heart of the casino.
He smiled repeatedly and waved steadily as he walked between those parallel lines to a thundered response he found incredible:
"Manny … Manny … Manny."
It was more coronation than greeting.
Later as we sat in a meeting room at The Palazzo, the Venetian’s sister hotel, Manny shook his head and said it surprised him. He had groped for the right English word to match the Tagalog he must have been thinking. One suspects the word he was reaching for was "stunned."
And then, of course, I asked him "the question."
"Why he will not fight me?" came his rhetorical answer. "Well, I think he is worried about his (undefeated) record. He talks about his zero losses. The zero that means so much to him means nothing when measured against who he fought.
"You talk pound-for-pound best, or undefeated champion. If you don’t defend against the best, none of that means anything."
"So if it should happen, I imagine you have given a lot of thought as to how you would fight him," I said.
Pacquiao smiled like a man with a great secret and then he said:
"I know how to fight him. I know what I’m doing. I know what his style is all about. So, if he don’t want to create action," and here he paused to smile again, "I know how to create action. I know that I can make him stand and fight.
"Listen, this is me. I punch, and punch, and punch. This is boxing. If you don’t punch, you don’t deserve to win. For me, that has always been boxing."
"Are you saying it’s the same now as it was before your first fight?"
"My first fight," he said without hesitation, "was in a place called Mindoro Occidental. His name was Ignacio and I won a four-round decision. But what I mean to tell you is that even then I was never nervous in the dressing room. For me, it was and still is an exciting experience."
All of those title fights at all those weight classes ever since his first pro fight, and for him, it is still very clear — this definition of what it means to be a fighter.
"If boxing is your passion with great conviction, why be nervous? It’s what you do."
"So how do you explain Floyd Mayweather from that standpoint? He certainly is not afraid."
"Not of fighting," Pacquiao said, "but perhaps of what one night could do to his zero of losses. I think I finally understand him:…what he says,…how he acts,…and I don’t like it. But what l learned and heard from him, well, I realize why he is like that. I understand sometimes when the people are not educated they just talk to talk. He sets a very bad example."
So the waiting game goes on. Before he leaves he says, "I was born to be a fighter. That’s why," and here he laughs, "I’m not a lawyer. I know who I am."
But in his heart he knows that picture cannot be complete unless the greatest fight that may never happen goes from the ethereal to the real.
