A Civil Trash Talk

Yesterday, when I am about to ride a tricycle going home, I saw a group of people convening around a television set inside a food shop. I knew it—a recorded video of Manny Pacquiao’s (MP) fight with Ricky Hatton. With this, I can say that Filipinos are not yet over the two-round bout that made history. The almost magical spectacle will normally last for one week, with the media tackling about every angle of the story: From Hatton’s possible retirement to Pacquiao’s congress candidacy, from The Hatton Girlfriend’s sorrow to Aling Dionisia’s luxurious lifestyle and from Mayweather Jr’s dirty mouth to Roach’s accurate prophecy. The media may opt to, again, rewrite and reread Pacquiao’s biography—which is actually a habit of the media every after the boxer’s fight. This kind of a week-long syndrome also includes netizens or those people found in the world wide web to write their own reactions or stories behind the historical fight. Furthermore, many people also react to these first-hand crafted musings. One of the articles that sparked interest among Filipinos and Pacquiao fans alike is the one written by a supposedly-irrelevant person from Oddjack.com named “JJ”.

In a nutshell, the article, which is written before the fight, bashed the Filipino boxer and somehow predicted that the Brit could win. I can just imagine how the author curls-up from public scrutiny and criticism. In the light of scholarship, let us tackle his major points one-by-one.

The Issue of the “Real Boxing”
Yep, Ricky ‘’The Hitman’’ Hatton will be at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada where he tries to finally save boxing from Manny Pacquiao and third world retardation.

Third world retardation has gone long enough in the sport of boxing and it’s about time that somebody puts an end to it.

Yes, boxing, thanks to Manny ‘’The Pacman’’ Pacquiao, has become retarded since he took the sport from its scientific and technical roots and turned it into a circus.

Boxing was all about finding out who truly is the best in the business. Unfortunately for the sport, Pacquiao and his people are turning it into a fuck-fest where they just look for past world champions.

According to JJ, Pacquiao made the sport a retarded one and that of the third-world. There was no direct correlation between Pacquiao’s nationality and the sport that he plays but it is safe to assume that JJ meant the same thing. Since we are considering logical analysis here, let us take into the spotlight the sole argument that he offered: He said that Pacquiao took the sport away from its scientific and technical roots. Unfortunately, he did not discuss how boxing is a scientific and a technical endeavor. With his lack of details, we cannot properly lay a counter-argument. Nevertheless, let us offer one: Professional boxing has never been deviant when it comes to its rules, regulations and core-principles. There might be different factions of the sport and there might be little modifications of some rules (Three knock-down rule, saved-by-the-bell rule, etc.) but the sport retained its original percepts including its scientific and technical roots.

JJ exemplified his theory by saying that boxing was all about finding out who truly is the best in the business but Pacquiao and his company lurked for past world champions and defeated them. In his exemplification, I believe that he made a very bold contradiction. He said that the sport of boxing is a last-man-standing endeavor. Obviously, the pool of probable adversaries still includes (past) world boxing champions. Moreover, these (past) world champions expressed willingness, more than consent, to fight The 6-boxing-titles holder. It’s no fuck-fest, it’s boxing at its classical form.

The Issue of Pacquiao Fascination
Bob Arum, Pacquiao’s promoter, even claimed that ‘’people are becoming fascinated with him.’’ Really?!? There are people out there who are fascinated with this guy?

The only kind of people who I see will be fascinated with a fucking moron like Manny Pacquiao is either the kind of people who have no idea what boxing should really be or they are not fans of the sport at all.

The author has a personally limiting view about the Pacquiao Popularity. He confidently feels that he is indeed a representative sample of the world’s boxing enthusiasts, fans and mere spectators. Moreover, he also has a limiting view about who should watch the sport or who should be a genuine fan of a genuine boxer. According to him, Pacquiao’s fans are not genuine boxing fans because they don’t have any idea what boxing should really be or they are not fans of the sport at all. Sports have a very wide entertainment value more than its competitive value, that’s why athletes gain fans, supporters and even loyalists. The realm of sports extends from the athletes to the spectators. This means that sports is not all about those inside the arena; it includes those people sitting on the bleachers of the coliseum. With this kind of conceptual span and this kind of leisurely value sports have, a person is not and would never be required to know the technicalities of a sport so that he or she could enjoy it, could be a fan of it and/or could be a follower of an athlete that plays such sport. The only thing that he or she should know is the basic principle of the sport i.e. how to win the game. The rest of the principles are either learned by spectatorship or by logical deduction.

On the other hand, I concede to the fact that the fans of Pacquiao may not be genuine fans of the sport. Even without JJ’s standards of genuineness, I can still see his point. Some people may only watch or talk about boxing when MP is one of the contenders. This fact, however, is not an issue. It is not an issue because it does not harm the institution of boxing and pool of boxers. It is a personal preference that no one could conquer. JJ is so selfish that he only wants genuine fans of boxing to be followers of the sport. I said a while ago that a sport, being high in entertainment value, is a show for everyone: from the ordinary housewife cooking lunch while watching a delayed telecast of the fight to the boxing analysts and commentators who personally witnessed the bout.

The Issue of Pacquiao-for-the-Philippines
He can fool his remaining fans into thinking that he’s fighting for his country when in fact, he is absolutely NOT.

Besides, boxing is just a contest between two fighters trying to determine who is better. That’s just about it. And for a moron like Pacquiao who goes on and tells his country that he’s fighting to unite whatever it is he’s trying to unite is just plain retarded.

When you are playing for a professional sport, you represent something—it could be a team, an institution or even a nation. The bottom line is that you always represent something extra-personal. In the Olympics, for example, athletes are not only playing for themselves but for their respective countries too. In a microscopic example, players of Patintero (a local Philippine street game) represent their team. This means that the glory of a single athlete is also the glory of the team, institution or nation he is associated with. With this, MP automatically brings the glory back to his homeland whether he intends it or not. His mere verbal expression of giving the glory to The Nation and to The Filipino People is just a bonus, just an emphasis of all this drama.

Furthermore, JJ contends that boxing is a contest between two fighters to determine who is better. I already debunked this argument by saying that the realm of sports extends from the athletes to the spectators themselves and the professional sport athletes represent something extra-personal. If JJ’s contention is the case, then boxing is ideally done solitarily and there is no need to hype it using media.

The Issue of Existence
Manny Pacquiao shouldn’t be in the world of boxing in the first place and I’m really hoping Ricky Hatton takes him out, PERMANENTLY.

JJ shouldn’t be in the world of boxing in the first place and I am really hoping that I take him out, PERMANENTLY.

Read the JJ’s full article here.