AFTER the high induced by his participation in the richest fight in the history of boxing last Sunday, Manny Pacquiao’s fortunes are taking a dive. The downturn was triggered by his admission after he lost to American Floyd Mayweather Jr. in Las Vegas that, unknown to many, he suffered an injury in his right shoulder while in training.
While Pacquiao made the statement apparently to cushion the impact of his loss, it enraged some of those who bought the expensive tickets for the fight or the equally expensive live pay-per-view coverage of it. The complaint was that they were duped into buying a defective product. Those who bet on Pacquiao and lost also felt cheated.
Yesterday, two fight fans filed in Las Vegas a class suit against Pacquiao, his manager and his promoter claiming they were defrauded because of the non-disclosure of the boxer’s rotator cuff injury suffered three weeks before the bout.
Fans who, after Pacquiao lost, still praised the Filipino’s gallantry in the ring, are now labeling the boxer as a cheat and ridiculing him for hiding the injury. It’s amazing how a boxer could be hailed a hero one day and flogged the next day for lying by omission.
While the condemnation is understandable, it is also good to widen our perspective a bit. Consider motive. There must be many reasons Pacquiao and his camp chose not to seek a postponement of the bout, but it must not have included consciously intending to fool the fans. In interviews, Pacquiao instead said he didn’t want to disappoint them.
But there is one issue aside from fraud that should concern boxing fans, and this is about health. Boxing is a brutal sport and boxers have died from punishment they got in the ring. It is, therefore, important for them to be in shape when in the ring and to be truthful about their physical condition especially to organizations supervising their bouts.
Only a thin line separates gallantry from being foolhardy. In boxing, that could mean the difference between life and death or permanent injury. Pacquiao is a model, being one of boxing’s best, thus, he should take the lessons offered by his current predicament to heart.