July 3, 2006
MANILA, PHILIPPINES
We enjoyed enthusiastically witnessing the “Thriller in Manila #2” that resulted in Manny Pacquiao’s crowd-pleasing performance in defeating game and gallant Mexican Oscar Larios at the Araneta Coliseum yesterday. This reporter carefully reviewed the fight on TV after returning from the arena since ABS-CBN TV continually showed it time and again. My simple question is: Why can Pacquiao hit so hard or so effectively?
Watching the fight again on TV, I realized the Filipino sensation threw just hand punches without putting the weight behind his punches. But his attack was so destructive that he dispatched Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales, and dropped Juan Manuel Marquez three times and Chololo Larios twice.
Juanito Ablaca, a long-time trainer in Cebu having watched Pacquiao training since his flyweight days and now handling ex-OPBF champ Randy Suico (who is scheduled to have a shot at the WBA light belt against Juan Diaz on this coming July 15), analyzed as follows: Pacquiao may look to throw only hand punches, but he hits from the shoulder. So, his hand-punch-looking attack is much more effective than it looks. Pacman is a natural hard-puncher from the beginning of his career.
Rafael “Cobra” Mendoza, the business manager of the good loser of Larios having represented 18 world champs out of Mexico, talked about the secret of Pacman’s power punching at breakfast on the next day. “Larios said Pacquiao didn’t hit so hard as expected. Chololo said he received just one punch, very effective, in the sixth or seventh. But his combination was too fast for Larios to react and defend against.”
That is the point. Pacquiao carries his flyweight speed in punching and moved up to the 130-pound division, so his punches are almost invisible for his slower opponents. Furthermore, Pacman is a lefty. His southpaw left hand quickly comes straight to your button or to your eye. The velocity of his punches produces the tremendous effect when his opponent takes Pacman’s quick shots without proper reaction.
This reporter, who once wrote a book titled “Boxing is Science,” insist that boxing isn’t a barbarous martial art but depends on the science. You can soften or decrease the damage in receiving punches by even a small movement (head-slipping, weaving, ducking or swaying back, etc.) of your head or upper body. That is the natural reaction of the boxer. Should a thrown ball come to you directly, you, even common people, usually dodge to avoid it (a collision of the ball to your body, especially to your eyes). Your reflexes make it. How and why do your reflexes work? Because your eyesight instantaneously catches the object (the ball) coming to you. A blind person cannot avert it colliding with him.
On the same logic, the boxer usually can avoid his opponent’s punches by sensing them coming. The most difficult to avoid is invisible punches coming from unseen angle. At the middle or close range, Pacquiao hit so fast combination for Barrera, Morales, Marquez and Larios to react against. There are few southpaw boxers in Mexico, and Mexican fighters aren’t generally so good at fighting southpaw opponents. Therefore, Pacquiao’s tremendously quick combination became the menace for them. Now we see the secret of Pacman the Menace, which results from his INVISIBLE punches, not from his punching power. While Pacman retains his “flyweight” hand speed and his stamina that he can hit punches even in the last round as fast as in the first session, his attack will prevail against anybody.
(7-3-06)