What do the following fighters all have in common: Rocky Palma, Dele Desierto, Seung Kon Chae, Nedal Hussein, Emmanuel Lucero, Jorge Solis, Tim Bradley, Chris Algieri, and Keith Thurman? The answer, they were all unbeaten when they fought Manny Pacquiao, and they exited the ring, having lost their “0” (Bradley in his second fight with Pac Man).
The big question everyone is asking now is, can the most incredible, risk-taking, lay it all on the line, shooting for utter greatness Pacquiao take Errol Spence’s unbeaten record when they fight on August 21st? Since news of this fight broke, Manny has been getting nothing but mad love, and quite rightly.
Experts, fans, fellow fighters, they’ve all be giving Pacquiao massive props for taking this incredible challenge.
Spence, as good as he is, as strong as he is, and as big as he is for the 147-pound weight limit, would have given a prime Manny Pacquiao a tough fight. Now, at age 42 (to Spence’s 31), Manny is seemingly shooting for the impossible.
And we all love him for it.
Is there anything more admirable than a fighter, one who has already proven his greatness many times over, who is still looking to take risks even as he closes in on retirement?
Some might ask, is there anything more foolish than said fighter taking such a big risk when his health, fortune, and reputation are already secure. But Manny is cut from a different cloth.
“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life,” the great Muhammad Ali said.
Pacquiao is of a similar mind, quite obviously. At the end of his legendary career, Ali pushed his luck too far, his skills too far gone to see him to a mystifying win over Larry Holmes (and later, what would have been a less earth-shattering win over Trevor Berbick). But Pacquiao has taken far better care of himself than Ali did, and he is better preserved even though he is older than Ali was as he goes when the heavyweight king went for the impossible. Now, Manny is going for the (seemingly) impossible.
Pacquiao has already endeared himself into our hearts the way precious few fighters ever have or will. If Manny can shock the world and get the win over Spence, well, the parade and the celebrations will not be big enough to do this once-in-a-lifetime fighter justice.
Once-in-a-lifetime? Yeah, Manny Pacquaio really is that. Already. If he can win on August 21st, we’ll have to come up with a set of words that praise Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao even further.
It really cannot be overstated how, with a win over a primed and peaking, unbeaten fighter in Spence, Pacquiao would be deserving of being looked at as one of the five greatest fighters of all time. The making of history awaits us.