The day after America’s midterm election, Manny Pacquiao was talking politics. Understandable, since the boxing sensation has a side career as a congressman in the Philippines.
There’s talk that one day he might be president in his homeland. Understandable, too, if only because he’s the biggest sports hero the country has ever had, so popular that crime virtually stops there every time he gets in the ring.
But who would have thought that the little fighter who does things no other fighter has done could play a role in helping re-elect the majority leader of the U.S. Senate?
Hard to believe anything you hear when it involves boxing, but this time promoter Bob Arum isn’t just making it up.
“I think Manny has to get a lot of the credit for his help in electing Sen. (Harry) Reid,” Arum said Wednesday.
Political pundits have yet to weigh in on the effect of Pacquiao’s effort on behalf of Reid, a former boxer himself, who survived a brutal race to beat Republican Sharron Angle in Nevada. Listen to Arum, though, and Pacquiao’s appearance at a Reid rally in Las Vegas a few days before the election was crucial in energizing the city’s sizable Filipino community and getting them out to vote.
Fighter. Politician. King maker. Is there anything Pacquiao can’t do?
Sing, some might say. But Pacquiao proved them wrong Monday night when he and comedian Will Ferrell teamed for a surprisingly good duet of John Lennon‘s “Imagine” on Jimmy Kimmel Live, despite only a brief rehearsal.
Lennon wrote the song about world peace. Pacquiao makes his living in a world of violence.
Mainstream America will learn more about him Sunday night when 60 Minutes profiles the phenom. The exposure is a promoter’s dream and a boost to a sport that, as usual, is in desperate need of attention.
Six days later he’ll step into the ring at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas to do what everyone expects him to do – beat Antonio Margarito and win yet another title to add to his already large collection.
Score one for the ability to multitask.
“Tell the fans nothing to worry about me,” Pacquiao said. “The only worry is how we can give a good fight for the people who are going to watch the fight.”
That shouldn’t be a problem since the only way either one knows how to fight is to move forward and attack. And no one questions Margarito’s heart in the ring even if he is a disgraced fighter — still banned from boxing in California and Nevada because of a hand-wrapping scandal — with declining skills.
In a perfect world he would be fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr. instead. But nothing is perfect in boxing, so Pacquiao – who began his pro career at 106 pounds – moves up in weight once again to fight Margarito at 150 pounds.
Arum’s biggest task — other than getting Pacquiao to jet in to campaign for Reid — is to find a way to make the fight compelling enough to sell tickets at the stadium plus pay-per-view sales to guarantee Pacquiao his millions. He’s done so by teaming with HBO’s 24/7 series for a campaign of his own centered on the theme that Pacquiao has been so busy that he hasn’t trained properly for the fight.
Arum went to the Philippines a few weeks ago and reported Pacquiao looked “really bad” in sparring. Trainer Freddie Roach picked up the storyline last week by saying Pacquiao was having the worst training camp of his career.
Then, magically, all was well.
“Everything is on track now. We’re 100 percent ready for this fight,” Roach said. “Manny guaranteed me he won’t disappoint me.”
The people around Pacquiao better hope not. Though he makes big money every time he gets in the ring these days, Pacquiao will be risking a payday of $40 million or so that he could make sometime next spring should he win and Mayweather finally agrees to fight him.
That’s pressure, but there is always pressure on Pacquiao not to let down the people back home. He represents them in the ring just as he represents them in Congress and his stature is such that he missed a day of training last month so he could confer privately with the country’s president.
There’s a good chance Pacquiao will get another private audience with President Benigno Aquino III when he returns home. By then he’ll have stories to tell about his latest trip to America.
He may even tell the president the one about how he helped re-elect one of the most powerful men in America.