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Brin-Jonathan Butler | November 20, 2013[/h3][h1]Requiem for a welterweight[/h1][h2]Manny Pacquiao may be broke, but is he broken, too?[/h2]
You’re Joe Louis, aged thirty-seven, a main-event heavyweight. You were the greatest champion of your time. But you’re trapped by the fight racket which you conquered."
— Jimmy Cannon
After eight frustrating years, four controversial fights, 42 contentiously scored rounds, with over 500 punches landed from more than 1,800 thrown, after two grueling hours of opportunity under the spotlight, on Dec. 8, 2012, Juan Manuel Marquez
finally landed the punch of a lifetime against Manny Pacquiao. It happened with just one second left in the sixth round of their mythic saga. Pacquiao charged forward to land one final blow before the bell, and instead added his own momentum to Marquez's immaculately-timed, coup de grace right-hand, which landed flush against Pacquiao's jaw. On TV, when the punch landed, Pacquiao's back was to the camera. The reverberations of the impact were only detectable through the sudden jolt of Pacquiao's wet hair on the back of his head.
But isn't this a staple of wrestling, meant to fool? Since the punch itself had landed with such comic book emphasis, the traction of the unfolding human drama, along with reality, became unhinged and, for an instant, suspended. In confusion and disbelief, many people watching around me in a New York bar laughed in horror. As Charlie Chaplin famously pointed out, from a distance, a man slipping on a banana peel or stumbling down a manhole is funny. It's something altogether different up close. And since Pacquiao had fallen face-first and remained motionless, almost fastened to the canvas, there were no cues.
Marquez was the first person in the world to understand the night was over. No matter how much anyone had paid to watch in the sellout crowd at the MGM Grand or the millions around the world watching on pay-per-view, they had to wait. We'd seen the punch; he'd
thrown it. As the referee rushed over to the fallen man, time stood still, postcard-like, while Marquez gazed down at Pacquiao like an anxious, nervous kid staring at Christmas presents under a tree.
Boxing’s not so well kept dirty secret is that, financially, most fighters can
never stop.
One of the oldest sayings in boxing, the first warning every aspiring fighter hears long before they've ever entered a ring, is that the most dangerous punch, the one to fear most, is the one you never see coming. While the cliché is certainly true at the start of a career, it rarely holds up toward the end. This is because almost none of the great fighters in history ever stopped after
that punch — and the history of the sport suggests that few can ever escape it. Pacquiao, despite earning a reported $174 million since 2009 from boxing and endorsements deals, is no different.
Why? Because, of course, boxing's not so well kept dirty secret is that, financially, most fighters can never stop. No matter how outlandish a fortune they've earned inside the ring and out, most greats not only never get ahead, few can even manage getting out from under. They never put much distance between themselves and where they came from. With few exceptions, they all end up desperately needing one more payday. And then another. And then
another. Most are forced to hang around so long their endings are consummated by the uglier, more sinister punch that they
all saw coming a mile away. Joe Louis, at 37 years old, was never blindsided by the physical punches that Rocky Marciano landed to knock him helplessly out of the ring and the sport. No, the punch he never saw coming and what set him up for Marciano's right hand was debt — in his case, to the government. Louis owed the IRS $500,000 and had nowhere else to go and get it but back into the ring.
Nearly all the greats were forced to stick around for those last final beatings, the ones that did lasting damage to their souls as much as their brains. If "protect yourself at all times" is boxing's most vital rule to obey, surely the most devastating blow in the sport is the one you do see coming, the one you're simply helpless to escape its impact.
Why is it so many of boxing's greatest heroes — Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson — were forced to stare down this last tragic fate and await their inevitable descent into boxing's latest cautionary tale? In the so-called "red light district of sports," the only jungle where, as Don King's biographer Jack Newfield once pointed out, "the lions are afraid of the rats," why can so few great fighters walk away undamaged with any money in their pocket? Will Pacquiao be any different? And why, despite the millions, should we expect him to be? Maybe in the sport of boxing, "cautionary tale" is too generous a title for a fallen champion: They end up just another punchline.
For a minute there, Dec. 8, 2012 might have become boxing's equivalent of Nov. 22, 1963, the day Kennedy was killed. One second Pacquiao, the 21st century's most beloved fighter, was ahead on the scorecards and charging. The next he disappeared under Marquez's fist just as the bell tolled to end round six. At first, arrestingly, it wasn't clear just how far down Pacquiao might fall. The referee certainly saw enough of the damage up close that he never bothered to count. Then, it began to register on those watching ringside that they may have witnessed what amounted to a public execution in the ring. Pacquiao remained motionless, possibly lifeless, until his cornermen rushed the ring in tears, followed by a doctor. Marquez jogged away from his fallen opponent, fist aloft, leaping atop the opposite turnbuckle as the Las Vegas crowd detonated into hysteria, flexing his biceps in vindication for three previously contentious battles. Whatever battles Pacquiao had won in their three previous contests, Marquez had now, with perhaps fatal finality, won the war.
It seemed possible that Pacquiao’s name would be the latest name added to boxing’s most sinister list.
Death isn't without precedent in the ring. It happened again only recently, when boxer Francisco Leal died of a brain injury at the end of October. A week later, on Nov. 2, at Madison Square Garden, Magomed Abdusalamov's was so badly damaged after 10 rounds he suffered a blood clot in his brain that forced doctors to put him into a medically induced coma. Abdusalamov suffered a stroke soon after and, with the help of a machine, still fights to survive today from his hospital room.
But no one with Pacquiao's visibility has died, let alone in a fight of the magnitude he fought against Marquez, one broadcast around the world. The first widely televised ring death dates back to 1962, with Emile Griffith battering the life out of Benny Paret until he collapsed into a coma and died 10 days later. An even larger audience watched Duk Koo Kim endure 14 rounds of punishment from Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini, only to succumb to brain injuries four days later. With reporters in press row parsing "lifeless" from dead in most of their ledes, it seemed possible that Pacquiao's name would be the latest name added to boxing's most sinister list.
"Yeah, he laid there too long for me," Freddie Roach told me this summer, back at his Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles. "He laid there too long for me not to move. I says to myself, ‘Is he ******g
dead?'"
And Roach certainly wasn't alone in his reaction, based on the sound of Pacquiao's wife, Jinkee's, agonized screams from the front row in Vegas.
"I mean," Roach sighed, "it was scary. But, you know, he got up. He was fine. He talked to me clearly. You know, he knew what happened. And you know, that's part of life."
My first phone call after the fourth Pacquiao/Marquez fight was to filmmaker Leon Gast. Gast had been an extremely generous mentor and friend to me while making my first documentary about super bantamweight champion and Cuban defector Guillermo Rigondeaux, who had fought on one of Pacquiao's undercards in 2010. It was the first time I'd ever witnessed an entourage anything like the one that Pacquiao had following him around. It was said Pacquiao had an entire country behind him, but the sheer size of his mob convinced me he also carried a good portion of the entire Filipino population in tow (and on the payroll). Even then, Gast had pointed out that the entourage posed a far graver threat to Pacquiao's livelihood than any opponent in the ring. The Academy Award winning director of "When We Were Kings," a film on Muhammad Ali, a movie that culminated in the "The Rumble in the Jungle" in Zaire, perhaps Ali's career-defining victory. Gast had been working for years on a Pacquiao documentary, similar in scope. Of course, Gast's documentary and most others omit the aftermath, Ali cruelly silenced and imprisoned in his body by Parkinson's disease. The film offered a coda where people
discussed the consequences of Ali's career on his health, but it didn't let you see it.
Gast, like the rest of the boxing public, had made no secret of the desire to see Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. square off in a fight destined to serve as Pacquiao's defining moment. A week later, I interviewed Leon at his home in Woodstock, N.Y., where he's currently at work cutting the Pacquiao documentary. I asked Leon if the fight that now likely won't happen, the fight that disappeared when Marquez sent Pacquiao to the canvas, Pacquiao vs. Mayweather, could have been our generation's version of Ali and Foreman in Zaire.
"Bigger," Leon corrected, shaking his head. "There's no question in my mind it would have been the biggest, most important fight since Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier fought in Madison Square Garden. I was there at that fight back in 1971. I know how big it was.
The Fight of the Century doesn't begin to describe what the energy was like to actually be there that night. Forget the money people throw around, Pacquiao and Mayweather had that kind of potential for something
important.
"But now we're crying over spilled milk. Floyd doesn't need it anymore and besides, I'm convinced [promoter] Bob Arum was never going to allow that fight to happen had Pacquiao survived Marquez or not. But Pacquiao sure might still need it."
That’s exactly how these guys get ****** up. God help us, here we go again."
"So now you have to end the film with that fourth Marquez fight?" I asked. "Is that the ending for the film? Isn't that too much of downer?"
"Déja vu all over again," Leon laughed. "It's
boxing. Muhammad Ali fought 14 times after Zaire. Fourteen times. And you know, that's exactly how these guys get ****** up. God help us, here we go again."
"Is the parallel that obvious?" I asked. "You see what's happening to Pacquiao as the same that happened to Muhammad Ali at the end?"
"Same old story. All of 'em on down. All the greatest — Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Ali, Tyson. All their careers ended with them either broke, busted up, or both. Ali had nothing left after Berbick and Holmes. Why did he take those fights in the first place? Nothing left. It's criminal he was allowed to take those fights in the first place. A medical board gave him a license in the state he was in?
Forget about it. Totally criminal. And you know something, he got lucky after they were over. That licensing deal he was offered that he got millions off of? Ali was
lucky. Without that deal, Ali was bust. As a country, our track record with these guys isn't pretty. Look at the rest of 'em in boxing. Where do they all end up? I just hope that after Marquez, Pacquiao doesn't get seriously hurt in his next fight. Or the one after that. I mean, he's one more knockout loss away from just becoming another name, just another stepping stone for whoever is on the way up. And for all this guy has done in the sport? I mean, how ugly is that?"
"Can he ever stop?" I asked.
"
Never," Gast laughed. "Never, never, never."
"Can he come back from that knockout against Marquez?"
"Who knows? You saw what happened to Pacquiao after Marquez laid him out. Freddie Roach thought he was
dead. He wasn't dead, but they'll still bleed him dry. To come back from that kind of loss and fight against a young, tough kid like [Brandon] Rios? That's a very precarious move right there. Not for anybody making it happen, of course, but for Manny. But then he can
never stop fighting. They never can. Too many bills and expenses. The lifestyle destroys them as much as any opponent. And everybody with their hand in Pacquiao's pocket knows he can't escape. You know, for them, the more in debt the better. He has to keep going."
"What are the expenses?" I asked.
"You name it," Leon laughed. "Where do we start?"
"From what I've heard? Taxes? Political campaigns? Women?
Jinkee's political campaign? Gambling —"
"You left out the
Church," Leon cut me off and moaned. "You have no idea what kind of tithe is going their way now that he's tried to clean up his act. Everybody's hand is out. Manny can't say no to anyone. The entourage. The charities. Lawsuits. Taxes. The ******g presidential run in the Philippines is coming up. Jesus. All those taxes on his real estate in Los Angeles and everything back in the Philippines. He has staff hired just to say
no to people who come at him with open hands. Why do you think he has to keep borrowing those advances from Bob Arum? Even with all those massive pay-per-view paydays and he's
borrowing money? Boxing is just such a ... it's a
wretched sport."
And that was before Typhoon Haiyan. How many hands will be out now, and how can he refuse? Pacquiao has released a "statement to the people," saying he will "send help to those who need it most," and his adviser Michael Koncz told the Associated Press, "Absolutely, he is dedicating this fight to the victims of this."
Maybe if Pacquiao either dies or suffers permanent damage in the ring, fighting for his people, perhaps he'll end up even more bankable. Before all this is done, martyrdom might be the most convenient justification for the sum of far too many foul parts that surround Pacquiao's lasting legacy.
Pacquiao was born the fourth of six siblings on Dec. 17, 1978 in the town of Kibawae, in the Bukidnon province of the Philippines. Pacquiao ran away from home as a child, leaving the day he discovered life had gotten so desperate that his father had actually eaten the family dog. He lived off the streets, often slept in a cardboard box, and sold doughnuts for a nickel to survive. As a 14-year-old, Pacquiao moved to Manila and continued his fight out of poverty by turning to boxing. He had a solid amateur career, winning 60 of 64 fights. After the death of a close friend and fellow boxer, Pacquiao, at 16, still under 5 feet tall and several pounds under even the lightest weight permitted to compete as a professional, turned pro anyway. To make his 105-pound debut, Pacquiao later confessed to hiding weights in his pockets when he stepped on the scales. Nearly 10 years later, Pacquiao finally arrived in America. On Nov. 15, 2003, he knocked out future hall of famer Marco Antonio Barrera in the 11th round to begin one of the most mythic decades in the history of boxing.
Despite earning nearly $200 million during his brilliant career, Pacquiao always hemorrhaged money.
In his next 20 fights, Pacquiao accumulated 10 world titles and became the first man ever to do so in an unprecedented eight weight divisions, from light-flyweight to junior-middleweight. He knocked out Mexican legend Erik Morales twice, avenged a draw against Marquez with two subsequent victories, retired Oscar De La Hoya on his stool, pulverized Ricky Hatton in two rounds, moved up in weight even further to batter Miguel Cotto into submission, sent Antonio Margarito to the hospital with a fractured orbital bone, then dispatched Shane Mosley and Marquez once more. The remarkable run finally ended with a highly controversial loss against Timothy Bradley in the summer of 2012.
Despite earning nearly $200 million during his brilliant career, Pacquiao always hemorrhaged money. Gary Andrew Poole's 2010 biography, "Pacman," laid out how Pacquiao's contracts were split: After his manager's took their 20-percent cut, his trainer Freddie Roach took 10 percent, strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza shaved off a few more points. There were also training camp expenses, tax bills in the U.S. and the Philippines, and his boundless, ever-growing entourage, all guzzling funds. According to a 2009
New York Times article by Greg Bishop, "Team Pacquiao has perfected the art of dysfunction. The entourage consists of trainers, assistants to the trainers, advisers, assistants to the advisers, cooks, dishwashers, car washers, publicists, gofers and security." For each fight, Pacquiao also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars flying his entourage to Las Vegas, buying hundreds of tickets, covering hotel rooms, and providing spending money. In the
Times article, Michael Koncz, singled out Pacquiao's Achilles' heel: "The downfall of Pacquiao, if there is one, will be his kindness and generosity. At some point, I fear that's going to catch up to him." Beyond Pacquiao's generosity, he reportedly squandered millions from gambling. That doesn't even account for his fleet of cars and extensive property holdings, including houses, condos, apartments and such an intense desire to give his money away to the poor he had to hire people simply charged with the responsibility to apologize and prevent him from throwing money at all the open hands spread out before him.
I flew out to Houston to interview George Foreman, one of boxing's rare success stories. What was Big George's secret? After the success of his signature grill (the
Times reported in 1999 that the George Foreman Grill had already earned him in excess of $150 million) and a second reign as heavyweight champion, Foreman is reportedly now worth nearly a quarter billion dollars. Yet, before we could start the interview, with a note of gentle caution, George's son, George V, asked me to avoid any
slippery questions with dates and names. "His head's fine," George V smiled reassuringly, "Pop's just getting a little older is all."
Then George V's father strolled majestically into his living room in a gray suit wearing Crocs. His infomercial smile beamed hospitality until it broke into sudden concern, "Please folks, I jus' ask you, don't make me go back too far in my memory. I don't like to be reminded some of my best fights was 40 years ago."
"Why are you one of the few happy endings in this game?" I asked him.
Some of us had all kinds of riches, but that didn't mean we found any kind of happiness."
"Boxing is the number one sport in every man's mind," George smiled. "Being champion of the world meant a lot to me. For a short period. You're up. You're famous. You're rich. Then you lose," Foreman laughed. "You lose a boxing match and you crawl into a hole and there's hardly anything that can get you out of that hole. Then you're on the verge of ‘I don't care anything about life.' I know what success is and failure is and success was short lived. Some of us had all kinds of riches, but that didn't mean we found any kind of happiness. There's a loneliness to being the heavyweight champion."
"I know you came from a rough background," I began.
"What fighter didn't?" George snickered, glancing at his knuckles.
George was right. It was a poor man's game. Boxing has no middle class. You're either a millionaire or you need a second job. Whatever amount a fighter signs to fight for, no contract in sports bleeds more money in all directions faster than boxing. Don King used to ask many of his fighters to sign blank contracts. And they signed their lives away. Those same fighters would happily accept King's offer of $10,000 in cash up front against a million dollars next week. Most boxers have to keep going until the bones have been picked dry. Then, when they have nothing left, no place to go, they simply go back to where they came, with nothing.
It's not an accident Donald Trump names everything after himself. It betrays a central fact about the fundamental emptiness of the legacy that Trump will leave behind. Who
else would ever name anything after him? Imagine how you'd feel about a society that did. What exactly has Trump achieved or owned that stands a chance of inspiring future generations to attach his name to
anything? This is because outside of Trump's net financial worth, his ultimate value inspires nothing.
The greats are remembered for what they give of themselves.
It's no different for fighters. The value of a boxer's legacy simply isn't determined by what he has; the greats are remembered for what they give of themselves.
This is the central difference between Pacquiao and Mayweather. No matter how much Mayweather out-earns Pacquiao financially, he can never buy his way out of the fact no great champion in history has been more willing to stink out a fight. Mayweather's legacy will be that he was one of the most exciting fighters in the history of boxing until he stepped into the ring. And none of Pacquiao's well-documented personal failings can erase how much of his life he risked and ultimately left behind inside the ropes. The easiest way to score a fight, as HBO announcer Max Kellerman once pointed out, is just to ask, "Who would I rather be?"
Pacquiao and Mayweather should have fought a trilogy by now, their battles as famous as those between Frazier and Ali or Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler. For the general sports fan, no fight boxing has offered since Tyson left the sport has escaped the shadow of Pacquiao and Mayweather facing each other. For the boxing public, in many ways their respective careers seem like opposite sides of Tyson's. Pacquiao's ruthless style reminds us more than anyone else of Tyson
pre-prison, and Mayweather's promotional genius owes a great debt to Tyson
post-prison.
Could it still happen? Could the two still fight? And, more importantly,
should it still happen? Mayweather's ultimate victory over his nemesis is that for the time being, he no longer needs the fight. Mayweather seems to be coasting his way toward career earnings of half a billion dollars before his contract with Showtime is up, but he should keep in mind how quickly Tyson blew through even more money than Mayweather has earned. Pacquiao, on the other hand, has a lot more uncertainty with his future and innumerably more bills to cover in his present.
Pacquiao's upcoming fight on Nov. 24, just before his 35th birthday, against Brandon Rios, only 27, offers some interesting parallels to the champions of the past. Joe Louis was 37 when he fought Rocky Marciano. Muhammad Ali was a couple years younger when he went up against George Foreman, and a year older when he fought Leon Spinks. Mike Tyson was a year older against Lennox Lewis. Roy Jones Jr. was the same age as Pacquiao when his career took a new, sad course after Antonio Tarver pulverized him in the second round of their rematch. "You got any excuses for tonight, Roy?" Tarver famously answered the referee's query about any questions before the fight. Six minutes later a groggy Roy had a doctor's flashlight in his eyes seeing whether he needed to go the hospital.
Yet for all the parallels between Pacquiao and the ghosts of legendary past boxing champions in the ring, the similarities may be infinitely more corrosive
outside the ring. Louis, still mired in debt over back taxes, spent the end of his life in a cowboy hat, coked out of his head, working as a greeter in front of Caesar's Palace. Sonny Liston died nearby, alone, a week's worth of newspapers and sour milk piled up outside the door. Ali's career has left the "Louisville Lip" barely able to mumble out a discernable word. In Philly, Joe Frazier spent his last days sleeping out of the office of his gym. Leon Spinks cleaned toilets at the YMCA after his fighting days were over. Iran Barkley was discovered homeless, sleeping the nights away on a New York subway train. While an aging, rumored to be broke, Roy Jones Jr. flew to distant corners of the globe to get knocked out for whatever money his name could offer, Arturo Gatti was found dead hanging from his wife's purse strap. Tyson, finally having salvaged some vestige of financial solvency and domestic happiness for the first time since declaring bankruptcy after blowing well over $300 million in his fighting career, recently confessed to relapsing. Evander Holyfield, house in foreclosure, a veritable village of children from multiple mothers to support, fights on into his 50s. Most recently, Tommy Morrison died at 44, succumbing to AIDS, the disease he perversely dedicated his last years to insisting he did not have.
Ten minutes after I first met Freddie Roach in Hollywood in March of 2010, he matter-of-factly mentioned that Pacquiao was broke. Every boxing writer learns quickly that Roach loves to toss out juicy quotes, usually followed by a giggle and a, "Hey, but don't be an ******* and report that." I wasn't even there covering or asking about Pacquiao. But
this quote? This was Pacquiao when all Floyd Mayweather could do to explain his dominance was hurl steroid accusations. I thought, even
hoped, I'd misheard him. Given the toll boxing took on Roach's own health (he had lived with Parkinson's syndrome for many years at that point), it's not always easy to hear his thin voice over the racket in the gym. I thought maybe he'd referenced a prior injury Pacquiao had had — his
hand or a
rib was "broke" — but by Roach's sad expression, I knew I'd heard him correctly. Arguably the greatest fighter of the era, still at the top of his game, was already broke.
Arguably the greatest fighter of the era, still at the top of his game, was already broke.
Virgil Hill, former WBA light heavyweight and cruiserweight champion, walked into the gym. Nearly 50 years old, he still looked good. Then Roach said Virgil was training for a comeback himself. "Is he broke too?" I asked. Why
else would he still be trying to fight? Roach shrugged his shoulders.
We stared at each other for a second until Roach was interrupted and asked for an autograph and a picture with a family from one of a constant stream of fans inundating his gym. Pacquiao's fame at this time, and by extension Roach's, was so enormous that Roach himself had a reality television show with HBO in the works. Crowds waited for hours in the parking lots satisfied with just a glimpse of Pacquiao exiting his sleek black Mercedes. Entire security details were engaged to navigate his arrival before adoring fans at Wild Card for sparring sessions. It was rare
not to see celebrities or television crews at his gym hanging around for a piece of the action.
Virtually every profile and story written about Pacquiao celebrated how he was different, what he had, and what he could still accomplish. He could be more than a champion. He already was. He was an icon to an entire country, an actor, a basketball player, a singer, a politician voted to public office in a landslide. Becoming president of the Philippines wasn't out of the question. Yet few of them mentioned the cost, or what he didn't have, or what he was losing. Those stories weren't what people wanted to associate with a rags-to-riches feel-good story like Pacquiao's.
In recent years, Roach's fighters had run up a staggering number of victories and Roach himself had become, as the PR for his memoir announced, "the most famous white man in the Philippines." World champions were lining up to train with him, sing his praises, and get on the gravy train. And while Roach loved the action and attention, everyone appreciated that he was always generous with his good fortune in an unusually humble way. My hunch about that feature of Roach's kindness was that it betrayed an unusual trait, about him, mostly absent in the profession of boxing: Roach was the first to tell anyone that he wasn't sure how long any of this was going to last. But it sure was fun in the meantime. Even then, I wondered how the scene would change after Pacquiao hung around the fair too long.
"He's really broke?" I asked again.
When Roach noticed a few people had heard what he'd said to me, he spoke softer. "Sure. Those checks get split an awful lot of ways and he's living as if he gets to keep every cent before taxes and the split."
Full Pacquiao vs. Rios fight coverage Bad Left Hook: SB Nation's boxing site
I tried to crunch the numbers on Pacquiao's reported earnings compared to what money he would have actually seen. In the two years prior, Pacquiao had laid waste to De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton, and Miguel Cotto. All were eight-figure paydays that promised even bigger paydays the next time he fought. Nobody had seen anything like this in boxing since the zenith of Tyson's reign of terror.
Not long after, according to figures Pacquiao filed as a member of the Philippine House of Representatives, he was worth 1.35 billion Filipino pesos — about $31 million. That's less than 20 percent of what he had earned by 2009. Where'd that go? Since then, riding the wave as the world's most exciting and beloved fighter since Muhammad Ali, according to
Forbes, he has earned at least another $50 million.
At what cost? How much remains? Fast forward to Pacquiao's life today. Back-to-back losses. Another training camp to prepare for another younger, dangerous opponent with an even more menacing, largely unspoken possibility hovering around him each and every day:
This might be it. Even if he isn't shot, most likely his best days are surely behind him, his earning power virtually guaranteed to drop dramatically. And how much is left anyway — any of it? Or is he just a Ponzi scheme? As staggering a résumé as Pacquiao has put together — surely enough to measure as favorably as Mayweather's in many people's eyes — he's paid a far graver price for it, and there may be still more debt to accrue.
"Is this a lonely sport?" I asked Freddie Roach a few months ago.
"Yep," he glared.
"Is that a part of every fighter that they're alone?"
You have the support around you as long as you're winning, but when you stop winning? They ******g go away."
"Pretty much. Yeah. You know, you have the support around you as long as you're winning, but when you stop winning? They ******g go away. The thing is, my mother was very honest with me. What goes up must come down. That was reality. That struck me. That was reality."
"If something goes really wrong with Brandon Rios, are you willing to tell Pacquiao you want him to retire?"
Roach put his head down and looked around his gym at the photos of fighters on the wall, at the mirrors on the other side of the ring, the bags hanging near his front desk.
"You're only going to retire from the sport when you're ready," Roach shrugged, raising a cup of coffee to his lips with a trembling hand. After Roach's own boxing career had ended without earning more than $7,500 for a fight, he found work as a busboy and a telemarketer before reentering boxing as a trainer.
"You're not going to retire when someone tells you," he said. "Because Eddie Futch told me I needed to quit. I says, ‘Well, what's the old man telling me that for?
He needs to quit.' I got angry. And, you know, I went against my mentor, my idol, the greatest guy probably ever I met in my life. But the thing was I was frustrated. I put everything into the sport that I have. I don't know how to do anything else. Boxing, I put my whole life into it, and I got nothing out of it. And here I am, 27 years old, him telling me to retire. I'm crying in his office thinking, ‘What the **** am I going to do with my life?' I fought five more times. On my own. I lost four of the five — so
he was right," Roach smiled.
"Did you see this day coming," I asked Roach. "When a fighter like Pacquiao walks into your gym that first day and asks you to train him. Do you ever think about how they'll end up?"
"I was on such a roll there for a while as a trainer," he said. "I hadn't had a loss in, like, I had like 26 wins and one loss.
I thought for a moment. "And now your three big-name fighters, Amir Khan, Julio Caesar Chavez Jr., and Pacquiao all had major losses. Khan and Chavez Jr. left you after their losses. What happens
after Pacquiao?"
"I've asked eight to 10 people to retire, in the middle of their careers," he said. "Or not in the middle, but somewhere along the way. I don't want anyone to end up like me, with a disease that I have to deal with every day of my life. Only one fighter I asked said ‘Yes.' Everyone else told me to either ‘Go **** myself,' or ‘I'll get another trainer and go on.' I says, ‘That's what you'll have to do.' If I don't think you should fight anymore, I won't train them."
"It's hard to imagine this boxing gym without Pacquiao being a part of it," I said.
It’s hard to imagine this boxing gym without Pacquiao being a part of it."
"Right now they say, I read in
Ring Magazine, ‘Who's In' and ‘Who's Off.' I'm out right now," said Roach. "You lose a couple title shots and, you know, your big guys are getting a little older and maybe a bit further in their careers, maybe on the
downside of their careers and now, you're trying to rebuild guys coming up, of course. But, I'm still doing the best I can. Right now, they think I'm out, but I'm doing my best to make my fighters the best they can be. That's the way it goes, you know? That's part of life."
"Time is a vandal," Jimmy Cannon once wrote. Joe Louis was Cannon's hero and he watched Rocky Marciano beat his hero into retirement. Louis was Ali's hero and, in 1980, Ali's hero was pushed in his wheelchair to Caesar's Palace to watch Ali's former sparring partner, Larry Holmes, brutalize him until Ali's trainer, Angelo Dundee, mercifully stopped the fight. Eight years later, in 1988, when Tyson fought an aging Holmes, Tyson's childhood hero, Ali, was there to whisper in Tyson's ear, "Get him for me." And Tyson did, knocking him out in four rounds. Seventeen years later, on June 11, 2005, at age 39, Tyson, two years after filing for bankruptcy, was fighting the unknown journeyman Kevin McBride. He quit on his stool in the seventh round and retired from the sport.
So it goes.
And on Nov. 23, when he fights Rios, Pacquiao has his own date with destiny as our era's most legendary, fading former-champion.
"You know you're finished," Cannon wrote of Louis. "You knew it first. You understand what happened to you better than anyone. You're the guy taking the punches. You share everything in the fight racket but the punches. You have no partners in pain."
After Nike signed Pacquiao to an endorsement deal, in a puzzling marketing decision, Pacquiao frequently wore a T-shirt in training camp that stated: "Manny Knows." It was never made clear what this knowledge was referring to. The meaning, like so much of boxing, was just left hanging there. At this point, I'm not even sure Pacquiao's millions of fans around the world want to know the answer to the most pressing question concerning Pacquiao's career and livelihood. The question itself is pretty obvious and it's the same one all the great fighters eventually have to answer both inside and outside the ring.
but I do want to see Sillakh succeed.
