Dying to see Pacquiao’s knockout power again

By Al S. Mendoza

I am glad that Manny Pacquiao is back in Baguio training since April 16 for his fight in June 10.

In case you have forgotten, Pacquiao will face Timothy Bradley in Las Vegas, Nevada – at the MGM Grand, the venue of his previous megabuck fights where he had always emerged triumphant.

Pacquiao will stake his world welterweight crown (147 lb) against an American challenger boasting of a 28-0, win-loss record.

The Philippine pride has three losses, but those defeats came when he was as carefree as every teenager can be, except his 2005 setback against Erik Morales.

In that bloody bout, Pacquiao could have beaten Morales, a Hall of Fame-bound Mexican, if not for an eyebrow cut the Filipino had suffered in the fifth round via an accidental head butt.

The injury terribly bothered our pride and joy due to blood dripping incessantly, blurring his vision.

Still, Pacquiao fought with all his might from the fifth onwards.

In the 12th, pouring it all, Pacquiao almost stopped Morales with a rain of punches as he got pinned on the ropes.

Pacquiao was virtually on the verge of knocking down Morales when the bell rang ending the fight.

Pacquiao lost on points, yes, but in the next two fights of their famous trilogy, he knocked out Morales on both occasions.

Both victories were fashioned out by Pacquiao in 2006 – the first one ending in a 10th-round knockout and the second one, a brutal ending happening in only less than nine minutes as Morales became a pathetic punching bag before finally being sent to dreamland in the third round.

Those back-to-back victories ignited Pacquiao’s unbeaten streak of nearly a dozen fights over a five-year period.

But against Bradley, Pacquiao is a driven man, one with a mission that must be accomplished – though the heavens fall.

After stopping the power-punching Miguel Cotto in 2009 in the 12th round, Pacquiao slipped into a four-fight string of wins by a mere points – against African Joshua Clottey, Mexican Antonio Margarito, American Shane Mosley and his arch-rival, that most durable of all Mexicans, Juan Manuel Marquez.

After merely scoring a majority decision victory over Marquez in November 2011, Pacquiao got a round of criticism bordering on his allegedly diminishing knockout power.

Thus, Bradley has now become the natural bait for Pacquiao to reestablish himself as the sport’s foremost knockout artist.

The American being unbeaten himself offers a multiple impact of euphoric, if not pyrrhic, proportions once he gets knocked out by Pacquiao.

But can Pacquiao do it again – finally?

I can only hope.

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