General Admission
Not only Pacquiao is world-class
By Al S. Mendoza
Happy birthday to Dicks Estrada, the assessor of my hometown Mangatarem, and Mangatarem Mayor Teddy Cruz, who will both celebrate tomorrow, April 27. Here’s a wish that many, many more years would come as you are both men of faith and eternally believe in and emulate endlessly Dear God’s limitless capacity to love. Will “crazy water” overflow tonight? Cheers!)
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IT was a Sunday Theater to behold.
Filipino boxers – two of them, especially – had electrified us, indeed, with their performances so that it would be worth noting again the fact we are really a nation of world-class prizefighters.
Who said only Manny Pacquiao is capable of ring savvy atop the world stage of boxing?
While Brian Villoria displayed methodical destruction, Nonito Donaire Jr. dished out clinical precision with dispatch.
It took Villoria 11 rounds to defeat Ulises Solis but no worries. He did it piece by piece, as in the precise assembling of a wrist watch. When it was over, a work of art is on the canvas for the world to see.
In contrast, Donaire needed only four rounds to send Raul Martinez to dreamland.
It looked so easy, so fast, that Donaire appeared like he hadn’t worked up a sweat when it was over.
All Donaire complained about was a left hand that hurt.
“I seem to always hurt it during a fight,” Donaire said.
I believe him. Three times he employed that left to knock down Martinez, a tough customer on paper since he had been previously unbeaten (24-0, 14 KOs).
Viloria was the same guy we saw in 2005 knock Eric Ortiz out in a stunning first-round triumph.
But then, as quickly as that win came, it also came too apparently quick that Villoria’s victory was a fluke.
For, not long after, Villoria would lose his world light-flyweight crown.
The kid from Ilocandia, who grew up in Honolulu to earn the tag “Hawaiian Punch,” would suffer in limbo for three years before getting another crack at his world title.
He was in tears after the victory.
“I fought in swap meats,” Villoria said. “I didn’t know where to go anymore. If I had not won this fight, I might have retired.”
You know what a swap meat is?
It’s that place very common all over America – usually a huge vacant lot where all kinds of goodies are sold cheap. It’s like our ukay-ukay, or tiangge every Sunday. An old transistor radio of mine came from a swap meat – bought at $3; an antic, it’s still in tip-top shape. Working condition.
Viloria fighting in swap meats meant he was oblivion-bound – a has-been. On Sunday, he was back from the ruins.
But not Donaire. As the reigning world flyweight champion, the switch-hitting Donaire is stardom-bound from the start.
Against Martinez, Donaire looked pretty much a shoo-in for greatness.
I am almost sure this Cebuano-born nose-buster will go places.
My only wish is, before he sets sail for the high seas, he first makes peace with his father, who trained him for what he is today.
Before the fight, father and son had parted ways – reportedly because the boxer’s wife was not in good terms with the boxer’s father.
Success can never be sweeter than a family kept intact by blood bonds.
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