Last Saturday night fight fans were treated to the inaugural big boxing fight of the year as the Pac-man, Manny Pacquiao took on Joshua Clottey for the Filipinos welterweight title. Jerry Jones and Top Rank promoter Bob Arum did as much as they could to hype the fight but it was still every fight fans dream to see Mayweather/Pacquiao, and this match had the overtones of the fallout that came from negotiations of that potential fight. Texas only knows how to do it big and 50,000 fans packed the Cowboys stadium including UFC president Dana White to see what was pretty much a one sided fight. Hell, even the announcers were pressed to try to spruce up the fight, which led to Jim Lampley’s now famous Bang! Bang! Bang! For a second I had thought the WWE had hijacked the card with Mick Foley as special guest announcer!
You can’t blame Manny though, he simply was too good and too fast. Clottey fought like a Koopa Troppa that night, slowly plodding forward oblivious to what was happening all around him and of course in front of him. It’s like he had put on one of those shells on his chest. Now that I think of it, Freddie Roach kinda looks like a Koopa Troppa when he puts that overly huge body protector on. You know the one i’m talking about right? the purple one? Go look it up numb nuts! You cant blame the guy though, I always figured if I was a boxer and was matched up with a guy that I knew was gonna whoop my ass but was being offered millions I would be stupid for not taking the fight. Endure 36 minutes of getting the smackdown put on you and walk out with 5 million. Yea that doesn’t sound to bad either.
As far as how the fight panned out, those who really know boxing will tell you it was a typical Clottey performance. Did you see the Cotto fight? Clottey did the same damn thing! He is a purely defensive boxer, and Pacquiao’s onslaught of lighting quick offense was too much. It was like Mario putting on the Hammer Bros costume and sledge hamming his way into Bowser’s castle. It was no match.
The Pacman seemed to grow a little impatient by the fourth round with Clottey’s constant lack of engagement. The worlds pound for pound best boxer made comments last week to ESPN that he is aware of mma though not yet a fan. Someone should of asked him if he had been exclusively training with the famed Gracie Hunter Kazushi Sakuraba. Sakuraba made the Mongolian chop world famous executing the double handed strike on the likes of his opponents. Manny took a page from his Asian brethren’s book last Saturday in attempt to make the bout more exciting. He actually got away with landing the strike! I immediately thought two things, Manny has to have seen clips of Sakuraba or this fool straight out idolizes King Hippo from the NES classic Mike Tyson’s punch out.
So which is it? lets take a look at the clip and try to figure it out!
The case for Sakuraba: Exhibit one
The Case for King Hippo: Exhibit two (Click at 12 seconds)
The Verdict?
Being a poor kid from the Philippines I don’t think Manny had the opportunity to play Punch Out let alone have a Nintendo. When you compare the two, the fact of landing a double punch on your opponent is pretty hilarious when you think about it. So you gotta give all three of these guys big ups! Sakuraba would land his double chop inside his opponents guard and for this specific circumstance, you gotta side with King Hippo as Manny’s inspiration for this punch. Sorry MMA fans.
Yes, I know I just stated that Manny was probably too poor to afford a Nintendo back in the day, but shit how many of us came from families too cash strapped to buy SNES and Genesis? Us poor kids had to go guerrilla style and befriend that neighborhood kid that wasn’t cool but had all the cool games. We had to bite the bullet!
If Manny didn’t have a rich friend in the area more than likely when he made his first good amount of change he stuck it to the man and bought a NES, SNES. Genesis, N64 and what ever the hell he missed out on video game wise.
As Filipinos and fight fans around the world look to Manny as an inspiration, they maybe overlooking a source of creative inspiration from the past, that gray little box with rectangular controllers sitting at the bottom of your closet somewhere…
