Articles of 2009
TSS Closer Look: HBO's The Thrilla In Manila
HBO Sports’ newest documentary really should be called “The Other Guy’’ because that is what it is all about.
On the surface it is a dramatic recounting of the “Thrilla in Manila,’’ the story not only of a historic boxing match but of the circumstances and political atmosphere that surrounded the third fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. It is the story of a night when two men nearly killed each other because their wills were bigger than their skills and their skills were vast. If that was all it was, it would be a remarkable tale well told.
But this is a documentary shot from the point of view of the other guy, which is what poor Joe Frazier always was when he was in the ring or walking in the same world as Ali. It was never fair that Frazier had to trudge forward in such a long, cold shadow but was it fair that God gave him such a left hook either? You didn’t think so after it hit you so, in a sense, things even out.
Frazier would agree with that, even when you look at his life and Ali’s these past 34 years. Both are old men now, and like most old men life has gotten the better of them in painful ways. Ali’s speech, which was always so much of his charm, is gone. So is his health. Frazier’s riches are gone, his youth is gone and the skills that once made him one of the most feared and famous boxers in the world are gone. Yet one thing remains for Frazier, the thing that made him Joe Frazier in the first place.
His pride, a lion’s pride, lives on at 63. It lives despite the fact he now shares space with it in two small rooms above a gym he built years ago in a rundown section of North Philadelphia known, fittingly if you ever knew Frazier, as The Badlands. For as bad a man as Joe Frazier used to be in the ring, isn’t that where he should reside?
Yet pride is a double edged sword. It can drive you to great heights or drive you to the point of near death in the pursuit of victory. Most of all it can trap you and that is where Joe Frazier lives today. Not trapped in North Philly but rather in 1975, the year he and Ali savaged each other for the third and final time until Frazier’s loyal liege and corner man, Eddie Futch, stopped the fight in the corner after 14 rounds because Frazier could no longer see the man he hated so supremely and so savagely.
That morning in Manila, as Frazier argued with Futch between rounds to give him those final three minutes with his equally spent but less visually impaired nemesis, Ali, Futch told him softly, “No one will ever forget what you did here today.’’ And no one ever has.
More than three decades later it remains one of the greatest fights ever contested, a fight so fraught with conflicting emotions that HBO saw fit to put its considerable money and heft behind what is the latest in a long line of remarkable documentary films they have commissioned and produced. What makes this one different though is that Ali is not the centerpiece. Old Joe Frazier, Smokin’ Joe no more, is.
We see a case built against Ali, as it pertains to his cruelty, vile racism and hurtful words. We see Frazier’s son, Marvis, speak of the taunting he took as a boy after Ali called his father an Uncle Tom so many times that America forgot which one of them grew up a coal-black sharecropper’s son in racist Beaufort, S.C. in the 1950s. Forgot which one of them lived his adult life in the gritty ghetto section of North Philadelphia and lives there still.
Forgot that, in actuality, Joe Frazier was a far better picture of the black man’s burden in those days than Ali, a beautiful, lower middle class kid who grew up in Louisville, Ky. Certainly there was racism there too but he never lived the hard life Frazier knew, first as a sharecropper and later working at a Philadelphia slaughterhouse to keep himself going in the early days of his boxing career.
Frazier and others tell the story of how he befriended Ali after the latter was exiled from boxing, giving him both financial and public support after he was banned from boxing for 3 1?2 years for refusing to be drafted at the height of the Viet Nam War. Eventually Ali won his case, returned to boxing and began to hunt down Frazier, then the reigning heavyweight champion.
By the first time they met in the ring in 1971, Ali had begun the process of turning Frazier into a political piñata with a dehumanizing and constant verbal assault on his manhood, his blackness, his looks and his family. By the third fight those taunts and insults had filled Frazier with a poisonous bile that would never recede.
“The two men hated each other,’’ narrator Liev Schreiber says. “A personal hatred born out of America’s racial politics of the 1970s…Years of animosity festered between these two heavyweight champions…In Manila, it took them to the brink.’’
To the brink of death, something Ali conceded after the fight and Frazier seemed almost to welcome. Asked if he was willing to have risked his life to fight that final round 34 years ago Frazier says only one, hard word in reply.
“Yeah!’’ No need for amplification.
The reason, the documentary makes clear, is that Ali “provoked a blood feud for which Frazier believes Ali is now paying the eternal price.’’
“Whatever you done when you a young man, it comes to bite you in the butt when you get old,’’ a tired-looking Frazier says of Ali’s long, and losing fight against Parkinson’s, a disease which has struck him silent and left him blank-faced and shaking uncontrollably at times. “Trust me.’’
Asked if he feels Ali is paying the price for what he’d done as a young man Frazier quickly adds “…and said! God knocks you down.’’
It was bad enough that Ali called him ugly, stupid, a “flat-nosed pug’’ and an Uncle Tom but he took it even deeper before the Manila fight when he began to call him a gorilla two days after he’d arrived in the Philippines. To a black man at that time of revolution in American society there could have been few worse things to suggest. Ali did it time and again, even producing a tiny rubber gorilla he used to beat up at press conferences. The crowd laughed. Frazier did not.
The more Ali did it the deeper and more infectious the bile grew inside Frazier, finally spilling forth in the ring that morning in Manila, when the two of them nearly beat the life out of each other for 14 rounds.
“Joe was ready to lay his life on the line…and he did,’’ recalled Dave Wolf, a Frazier confidante at the time and a long-time boxing manager.
It was 125 degrees and staggeringly humid the morning of the fight, only adding to the agony the two of them would experience. For the first few rounds, Ali dominated with his jab and his speed but soon Frazier began to work his way inside and tear at his body like an angry jackal coming across a freshly bleeding carcass. From the fifth round through the 11th Frazier extracted a price from Ali’s kidneys and liver that left him urinating blood for several weeks after the fight.
But Frazier was going blind to do it. Already nearly blind in his left eye from a 1964 training injury he never made public, now his right eye was rapidly closing as if a dark shade had fallen. As it came down, Ali began to savagely beat on Frazier’s face with right hands Frazier told Futch he could no longer see.
Ali, meanwhile, was exhausted and told his corner men this was what death must be like. Yet the two fought on and the documentary paints the picture in savage slow motion and with full speed assaults. “Years of bad blood assured that neither man was willing to yield,’’ Schreiber intones as their fists chop at each other.
“You want to know what makes the crowd scream and holler?’’ asks Ferdie Pacheco, Ali’s long-time physician and the verbal co-star of this documentary. “Look at round 14.
“Round 14 is the closest I’ve seen to somebody killing somebody. Ali was very close to killing him. Very close. That’s what gets people killed in boxing. When the fight becomes more important than life and death.’’
So it was to Frazier, who would never yield to a man who had, in his mind, betrayed his trust, forgotten the friendship he’d extended to him when he was in exile from boxing and insulted him as a man in a way so deep, nothing but inflicting and absorbing pain could sooth it.
As Frazier watches the tape he hears the ring announcer suggest Ali might stop him and he snorts, “Naahhh. He couldn’t take me out. He was dead. Both of us (was), I would say.’’
After 14 rounds Frazier returns to Futch with his eye closed to a slit and his face a hematoma. As Futch argues with him about stopping the fight, Ali has gone to his corner and ordered his trainer, Angelo Dundee, to cut his gloves off. He wants no more of Joe Frazier, a fact a Frazier colleague from Philadelphia, Willie Monroe, hears from his seat and tries to make clear to Frazier’s corner.
Ali later confirmed this as does Pacheco in the film. Futch doesn’t know this however and stops the fight to protect Frazier. When Ali realizes it, he stands up, waves one arm and then collapses on the floor.
Frazier watches and then says, “He was the one says he wasn’t going to come back out I don’t think. Yeah.’’
Later Ali would summon Frazier’s son to his locker room. Marvis Frazier recalls how Ali apologized to him for the things he’d said and asked him to tell his father. Happy to finally hear Ali soften his words, he returns to his father’s locker room to tell him. What he recalls, even 35 years later, shows the depth of the pain Joe Frazier endured and still carries today.
“He said, ‘Hey, son, why didn’t he say it to me? You’re not me, son. He said it in front of all them people. He said all those words. All them nasty things. Let him come to me and tell me.’’’
Ali never did and so two old men sit now with their memories, one a silent icon trapped inside a broken body who helped change the world; the other an old fighter living in a north Philly ghetto still overflowing with the same bile that nearly killed him and, he believes, made Muhammad Ali the broken man he is today.
“I’m just proud to let them see the stuff that they said,’’ the old Joe Frazier says in the film. “The damage I done to this man, both mind and body, let them see.’’
Occasionally Frazier’s position on Ali softens in public but anyone who thinks that’s really how he sees things now is quickly disabused of that notion by Frazier’s brother, Tommy. He asks the film crew if they’ve ever dialed his brother’s cell phone. When they say they haven’t he does and then turns the phone to the camera.
Next thing you hear is Frazier’s gravelly voice saying, “My name is Smokin’ Joe Frazier. Sharp as a razor. Yeah. Floating like a butterfly, stings like a bee. I’m the man that done the job. He knows, look and see. Call me. Bye, bye.’’
Ali, of course, was the man who once claimed to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. Joe Frazier is still the man who claims he plucked the wings off the butterfly and swatted the bee. Why that remains important to him after so many years is clear after watching “Thrilla in Manila,’’ a documentary that could just as easily been called “The Other Guy’’ because sadly that’s still what Joe Frazier remains.
An angry “other guy’’ who produced a trilogy of fights with a friend who became his arch enemy and filled him with a hate that not even old age and hard times can soften. Surely that’s why, right near the end of the film he calls Ali “Clay’’ one last time, the given name Ali came to regard as a symbol of racism.
Then, as if he was speaking to Ali, Frazier says, “Ask the Lord to forgive him. That’s all. Before you take that last gasp – you ask for forgiveness.’’
Until then, Joe Frazier will remain still Smokin’ Joe.
Editor note: “Thrilla in Manila’’ debuts Saturday night 8-9:30 pm Eastern, 10-11:30 pm Pacific prior to the debut of Pacquiao-Hatton 24/7 and a middleweight fight between Winky Wright and Paul Williams. It will re-air numerous other times on HBO and HBO2. Check local listings.
Former champion Rashad Evans meets Brazil’s venerable Thiago Silva in a non-title belt that can lead to a return match with the current champ, but first things first.
Evans (15-1-1) and Silva (14-1) meet in Ultimate Fighting Championship 108 in a light heavyweight bout on Saturday Jan. 2, at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. A win by either fighter could result in a world title bid. The fight card is being shown on pay-per-view television.
Events can change quickly in the Octagon and anybody can beat anybody in the 205-pound weight division. Just ask Silva or Evans.
Silva and Evans are both experienced and can vouch firsthand about the capriciousness of fighting in MMA and especially as a light heavyweight. On one day this man can beat that man and on another day, that man can beat this man. It can make you absolutely daffy.
Evans, 30, is the former UFC light heavyweight world champion who only defended his title on one occasion and lost by vicious knockout to current champion Lyoto Machida of Brazil. It’s the only defeat on his record.
Silva, 27, is a well-rounded MMA fighter from Sao Paolo, Brazil who is versed in jujitsu, Muy Thai and boxing. He can end a fight quickly in a choke hold just as easily as with a kick or a punch. His only loss came to who else: Machida.
Evans and Silva know a win can push open the door to a rematch with current UFC light heavyweight champion Machida.
“A win against Rashad would put me in the track against Lyoto,” said Silva, in a telephone conference call. “That's what – what I want to do.”
When Silva fought Machida the two Brazilians were both undefeated and feared in the MMA world. The fight took place in Las Vegas and with one second remaining in the first round a perfectly timed punch knocked Silva unconscious.
“I was humbled big time, man,” says Silva who fought Machida in January 2009. “I learned a lot from that fight. I think I can correct the mistakes from that fight, not overlooking anything else right now, but just I want to get the chance to fight him again.”
For Evans it was a different circumstance. The upstate New Yorker held the UFC title and was defending it after stopping then champion Forrest Griffin by knockout. Still, many felt Machida was far too technically versed. Evans was stopped brutally in the second round.
“I've made it a point to not – to not get distracted on what I want to do, because you know Thiago (Silva) is a very hungry fighter,” said Evans who has not fought since losing the title to Machida last May. “My focus is just on Thiago so much. You know I don't want to overlook him, you know, not even a little bit.”
Dana White, president of UFC, says the winner of this fight could conceivably fight Machida in the near future. Evans and especially Silva are motivated by the open window.
“I learned a lot from that fight. I think I can correct the mistakes from that fight,” says Silva. “Not overlooking anything else right now, but I just want to get the chance to fight him again.”
What a prize. The winner gets to face the man who beat him: Machida.
Early in his political career, the young Lyndon Baines Johnson served as a congressional aide to Rep. Richard Kleberg, the wealthy owner of the King Ranch who was elected to seven consecutive terms in the House of Representatives, at least in part because he often ran unopposed.
One year an upstart rival politician we'll call Joe Bob had the temerity to challenge Kleberg in the Democratic primary, resulting in the convocation of the Texas congressman's staff to plot an election strategy. Several ideas were kicked around before Kleberg himself came up with a brainstorm.
“Why don't we start a rumor that he [copulates with] sheep?” proposed the politician.
This was a bit over the top, even for Lyndon Johnson. The future president leapt to his feet and said, incredulously, “But you know Joe Bob don't [copulate with] sheep!”
“Yeah,” replied the congressman, “but watch what happens when the son of a bitch has to stand up and deny it!”
******
Events of the past week or two have seen the Floyd Mayweather camp adopt a similar tactic with regard to Manny Pacquiao. But if introducing what would appear to be a red-herring issue — the debate over drug-testing procedures — to the negotiating process was intended as a negotiating ploy, it would appear for the moment to have backfired. The idea might have been to force Pacquiao to go on the defensive, but Pac-Man instead responded with his stock in trade, the counterpunch — in this case the multi-million dollar defamation suit he filed against the Mayweathers, pere et fils,, with the U.S. District Court in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
In boxing even more than in life, you never say never, but you'd have to say that Pacquiao-Mayweather is a dead issue right now, at least in its March 13 incarnation. Bob Arum says Pacquiao is prepared to move along to another opponent, and Mayweather is supposedly looking at Matthew Hatton in England.
We'll believe that when we see it, for at least three reasons: (1) There would hardly seem to be enough money in that one to make it worth Floyd's time, (2) He's going to have to put so much into preparing a defense to this lawsuit that he mightn't have time to train and (3) He'd get a better workout if he stayed in Vegas and boxed one of Uncle Roger's girl opponents.
*****
Colleagues on this site have already done a good job of dissecting this process. Ron Borges is absolutely correct in noting that in the midst of all the posturing that's gone on, you'd be a fool to accept at face value anything coming out of any of the parties' mouths. And Frank Lotierzo is spot on in noting that if you had absolutely no desire to actually get in the ring with Manny Pacquiao but were still looking to save face, you'd do pretty much exactly what Mayweather has done. Which is to say, talk tough while you get others to run interference with a series of actions seemingly calculated to ensure that the fight doesn't come off.
But left almost unscathed in all of this heretofore has been the convoluted role played by Golden Boy — by CEO Richard Schaefer, by the company's namesake Oscar the Blogger, GBP's subsidiary enterprise, The Ring, and at least a few of the lap-dogs and lackeys whose favor GPB has cultivated elsewhere in the media.
In late March of 2008, Shane Mosley and Zab Judah appeared at a New York press conference to announce a fight between them in Las Vegas two months later. As it happened, the BALCO trial had gotten underway out in California that week. That day I sat with Judah and his attorney Richard Shinefield as they explained that they intended to ask that both boxers agree to blood testing in the runup to the fight. Citing Mosley's history with BALCO and its products The Cream and The Clear (which Shane claimed Victor Conte had slipped him when he wasn't looking), Shinefield and Zab, noting that Nevada drug tests were limited to urinalysis, proposed that the supplementary tests be administered by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Want to know what Richard Schaefer's response to that was?
“Whatever tests [the NSAC] wants them to take, we will submit to, but we are not going to do other tests than the Nevada commission requires,” said Schaefer. “The fact is, Shane is not a cheater and he does not need to be treated like one.”
But the fact is that Mosley had a confirmed history as a cheater. Manny Pacquiao does not. Yet in the absence of a scintilla of evidence or probable cause, less than two years later Schaefer was howling that the very integrity of the sport would be at risk unless Pacquiao submitted to precisely the same sort of testing he had rejected for Mosley.
And you thought it was Arum who was famous for saying “Yeah, but yesterday I was lying. Today I'm telling the truth!”
Schaefer, by the way, defended his 180-degree turnabout by saying he is now better educated on the issue. He couldn't resist aiming a harpoon at the media by adding that many sportswriters “don't know the difference between blood and urine testing.”
Don't know how to break this to you, Richard, but sportswriters, who have had to deal with this stuff for the past twenty years, probably know more about drug-testing procedures than any other group you could name.
*****
Now, the reasonable assumption would be that by assuming the role of the point man in this unseemly mess, Schaefer was insulating his boss (De La Hoya) and his fighter (PBF) by keeping their fingerprints off it while he made a fool of himself publicly conducting this snide little campaign.
And yes, Money would have stayed out of the line of fire had not a two-month old, expletive-filled rant in which he described the Philippines as the world's foremost producer of performance-enhancing drugs not exploded on the internet at the most inopportune moment. That the lawsuit was filed less than 24 hours after “Floyd Meets the Rugged Man” overtook the Tiger Watch probably wasn't a coincidence.
And we're assuming that this Dan Petrocelli, the lawyer who filed Pacquiao's suit, knows what he's doing, because if there were an even one-zillionth chance that somebody could credibly link Manny to PEDs, then it was a pretty dumb thing to do. You could ask Roger Clemens about that. Clemens' transformation from Hall of Famer-in-waiting to nationwide laughingstock didn't come from the Mitchell Report. It came from his wrongheaded decision to file a lawsuit against Brian McNamee, which in turn threw everything open to the discovery process.
*****
De La Hoya, in the meantime, was playing both sides of the fence. He let Schaefer play Bad Cop as he distanced himself from the negotiating process, but simultaneously was sniping away at Pacquiao from his First Amendment-protected perch as a Ring.com blogger.
“If Pacquiao, the toughest guy on the planet, is afraid of needles and having a few tablespoons of blood drawn from his system, then something is wrong… I'm just saying that now people have to wonder: 'Why doesn't he want to do this?' Why is [blood testing] such a big deal?' wrote Oscar the Blogger. “A lot of eyebrows have been raised. And this is not good.”
Ask yourself this: Exactly what caused those eyebrows to be raised, other than the innuendo coming straight from Oscar's company?
Providing De La Hoya with a forum from which to dispense propaganda only begins to illustrate the hopelessly compromised position from which The Ring continues to operate. They might as well give Schaefer a column, too, while they're at it.
Nearly seven months have elapsed since we last visited the Ring/Golden Boy relationship, and at the risk of winding Nigel up, it might be useful here to note that in the midst of last June's discourse, The Ring's editor offered a laundry list of the magazine's covers since the De La Hoya takeover as a demonstration of Golden Boy's restraint.
After listing them, Nigel Collins wrote “that's 28 covers over the course of 21 issues, of which Top Rank had 12 fighters, as opposed to eight for Golden Boy and eight for other promotional entities. Obviously, The Ring has shown no bias to Golden Boy when it comes to magazine covers.”
It had never even been suggested that the conflict of interest extended to the magazine playing favorites in choosing its cover subjects, but since Nigel brought it up it is probably worth noting now that of those eight covers given over to “other promotional entities,” two were of David Haye, whose promoter was properly listed as “Hayemaker,” but who had also signed a promotional deal with Golden Boy in May of 2008. (Just last month GBP issued a release in De La Hoya's name in which it described itself as “Golden Boy Promotions, the United States promoter of World Boxing Association Heavyweight World Champion David Haye.”)
And even more to the point, in four other issues Nigel Collins offered in evidence the cover subject was Floyd Mayweather (Independent), although what has transpired with regard to the Pacquiao fight doesn't make Money look very independent at all, does it?
We don't regularly keep track of these things, but in making sure we didn't misquote Oscar's Blog we also came across a representation of the January 2010 issue on The Ring's website. The picture on the cover of the Bible of Boxing is of the Golden Boy himself, and the cover story “De La Hoya: The Retirement Interview.”
Wow! Now there's a hot topic for crusading journalists.
In theory and in practice I am vehemently opposed to people tossing out unfounded allegations against someone. Supply evidence, then we can talk. But saying someone is using steroids, or EPO, or HGH, based on a theory, or your gut instinct….I have to consider, what if the allegation were thrown at me, and I was 100% innocent. I'd be mightily irked. And so too would you be.
Manny Pacquaio has been hammered from all sides with folks insinuating and coming right out with the contention that they think he's been cheating, that he's been using illegal performance enhancers to give him an edge in competition. Floyd Mayweather Sr, Paulie Malignaggi, Miguel Cotto and Kermit Cintron have either accused Manny, or insinuated that he's been using PEDs. One has to wonder, where's all this smoke coming from? Is it possible that there's fire lurking? That these folks aren't just lobbing unfounded barbs at Manny, that their allegations and hints aren't just sour grapes, or posturing, or a ploy to lure Manny into a fight?
By and large, there hasn't been much in the way of coverage from the standpoint of: what if Manny is using PEDs, or was using PEDs? I think that is rightly so; I'd be more comfortable if none of us trafficked in the innuendo and speculation, and worked within the realm of evidence, and facts. But it's out there, and a topic of conversation and speculation. Perhaps it's a symptom and sign of the times we live in…
TSS reached out to Malignaggi, just off a solid win in his Dec. 12 rematch with Juan Diaz. The Brooklyn-based pugilist has never been shy about speaking his peace (I picture him exiting his mom's womb and barking at the labor and delivery crew to get the room cleaned up, stat!), and he shared with TSS what he bases his allegations, which he's careful to label opinion, upon.
First off, Malignaggi is of the belief that if the Pacquiao-Mayweather negotiations are at a fatal impasse, Yuri Foreman, and not he, will get the coveted date with Pacquiao. Malignaggi has been mentioned as stand-in for Mayweather.
He started off by insisting that ” I have nothing against Pacquiao” but then went from mellow to madman in a 30 second span.
First off, the boxer wonders why Team Pacquiao isn't going after big-time newspapers, with deep pocketed owners, for libel, for insinuating that Pacquiao is drug cheat.
“If Pacquiao's so sue happy, why not sue the New York Daily News?” he asked. “Maybe they know the steroid allegations are true.”
By and large, Malignaggi thinks it is impossible, utterly impossible, for a boxer to put on 15 or more pounds between March 15, 2008, when he fought Juan Manuel Marquez and weighed 129 pounds at the weigh in, and Nov. 14, 2009 when he fought Miguel Cotto and was 144 pounds at the weigh in, and more on fight night.
“It's not natural looking,” Malignaggi said. But, I countered, what if Manny's supremely blessed, that unlike some other fighters who go up in weight, and look a bit bloated, and lack definition, he's just a special creature?
“He's not supremely blessed,” Maliganngi said. “I know body builders. They can't put on 17 or whatever pounds of muscle in a year. It's not doable, in my opinion. These are my speculations, my opinions based on certain factual evidence. Does his weight gain look normal to you? And his head looks like it has blown up in size, too.”
I offered to Malignaggi that perhaps we should be attacking the system, if we believe it to be lacking, rather than the individual.
“We can blame the system a little bit, but if you were Manny, wouldn't you want to leave no doubt? Or speculation?” said Maliganngi, who believes that by not agreeing to the terms set forth by Team Mayweather, and opposing a blood test within 30 days of the bout, Pacquaio appears guilty.
Pacquiao has agreed to take 3 blood tests: the first during the week of the kickoff news conference in early January, the second random test to be conducted no later than 30 days before the fight, and a final test after the bout. A video making the rounds from the HBO 24/7 series shows Pacquiao submitting to a blood test two or three weeks before he was due to fight Ricky Hatton, and that has cast doubt on Team Pacquiao's stance that Manny is disinclined to get a blood test too close to a bout, for fear he may be weakened. Originally, it was reported in error that that test was taken 14 days before the Hatton bout, but subsequent reports pegged the test as being taken 24 days before the scrap. Malignaggi feels Pacquiao has been caught lying, that the report from Team Pacquiao that he “has difficulty taking blood” is a cover story. “Why is he effing lying?” Malignaggi said, heatedly.
The New Yorker doesn't believe too many fighters in the lighter weight classes are using PEDs, but thinks usage isn't uncommon in the heavyweight division. “That's hard to do and make weight,” he said.
The question is asked of Malignaggi: why does the issue make him so steamed?
“I don't like cheaters,” he said. “This is not baseball. You're not just hitting home runs. You have to worry about peoples' lives. Miguel Cotto in my opinion has been beaten by two cheaters. Manny if he's cheating is taking away from guys who are doing things the right way. His team is reneging on their words.”
And what if you're wrong, Malignaggi? What if Manny is clean, and you are hurting his rep with these allegations?
“I bet everything I own that I'm not,” he said. “But we'll never find out. Hey, I would take the test in a heartbeat. I would want people to know I'm clean. He wants to leave doubts!?? His entire legacy is being questioned, he's willing to hurt his legacy and leave $40 million on the table?”
Maliganngi, after reminding TSS that he was correct in predicting he'd be gamed by judges in the first fight with Diaz, insisted that he isn't singling out Pacquiao for a personal vendetta. “”I've never had anything against him. But that's enough now. I call it like I see it.”
What about those who'd say he's just trying to anger Pacquiao, to lure him into a fight?
“No. I expected he'd take the random tests to get this fight. No way I thought he'd throw away everything. That blew me away. It was cool to have my name mentioned.”
Malignaggi thinks the boxing media has dropped the ball, and not exercised due diligence in examining the possibility that Manny has used PEDs.
“I understand most people like Manny, and not Floyd. Just cause that's the case doesn't mean Manny might not be cheating. It's nothing to do with him personally. But I call a spade a spade. Too many people avoid the possibilities because Manny's a likable person. He's got that front, his country loves him. That front works like crazy. Floyd plays the bad guy, but he's natural. Just don't downplay the fact that Manny might be cheating. You have to open your eyes and at least be willing to look at it. This is bigger than me. The fact that the fight is not being made, you have to question the integrity of Pacquiao.”
Malignaggi then offered an analogy to the Manny-refusing-to-be-subjected-to multiple-random-drug-tests prior-to-a-fight-with-Mayweather deal. “It reminds me of the drunk guy who's pulled over at 3 AM. He has a field sobriety test, the cop knows he's drunk, he looks and acts drunk. But he refuses a breathalyzer test. That don't mean the cop don't haul him to the police station.”
I reiterate…I don't think anyone should be casting aspersions based on circumstantial evidence. But with so many people ganging up on Manny, I think fight fans are owed some details on why people are accusing Pacman of using PEDs.
R.I.P. Paul Bamba (1989-2024): The Story Behind the Story
Skylar Lacy Blocked for Lamar Jackson before Making his Mark in Boxing
Jai Opetaia Brutally KOs David Nyika, Cementing his Status as the World’s Top Cruiserweight
Bygone Days: The Largest Crowd Ever at Madison Square Garden Sees Zivic TKO Armstrong
Mizuki Hiruta Dominates in her U.S. Debut and Omar Trinidad Wins Too at Commerce
Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More
Hall of Fame Boxing Writer Michael Katz (1939-2025) Could Wield His Pen like a Stiletto
Boxing Trainer Bob Santos Paid his Dues and is Reaping the Rewards
Najee Lopez Steps up in Class and Wins Impressively at Plant City
Ringside at the Cosmo: Pacheco Outpoints Nelson plus Undercard Results
Boxing Odds and Ends: Ernesto Mercado, Marcel Cerdan and More
Claressa Shields Powers to Undisputed Heavyweight Championship
Avila Perspective, Chap. 311: Jim Lampley Adds Class to the Benavidez-Morrell Rumble
Avila Perspective, Chap. 310: Japanese Superstar Naoya Inoue and More
Japanese Superstar Naoya Inoue is Headed to Vegas after KOing Ye Joon Kim
Benavidez Defeats Morrell; Cruz, Fulton, and Ramos also Victorious at Las Vegas
Eric Priest Wins Handily on Thursday’s Golden Boy card at the Commerce Casino
Undercard Results from Las Vegas where Mirco Cuello Saved his Best for Last
Bakhodir Jalolov Returns on Thursday in Another Disgraceful Mismatch
Bakhodir Jalolov Returns on Thursday in Another Disgraceful Mismatch
Claressa Shields Powers to Undisputed Heavyweight Championship
Benavidez Defeats Morrell; Cruz, Fulton, and Ramos also Victorious at Las Vegas
Undercard Results from Las Vegas where Mirco Cuello Saved his Best for Last
Avila Perspective, Chap. 311: Jim Lampley Adds Class to the Benavidez-Morrell Rumble
Hall of Fame Boxing Writer Michael Katz (1939-2025) Could Wield His Pen like a Stiletto
Boxing Odds and Ends: Ernesto Mercado, Marcel Cerdan and More
Ringside at the Cosmo: Pacheco Outpoints Nelson plus Undercard Results
Najee Lopez Steps up in Class and Wins Impressively at Plant City
Japanese Superstar Naoya Inoue is Headed to Vegas after KOing Ye Joon Kim
Eric Priest Wins Handily on Thursday’s Golden Boy card at the Commerce Casino
Avila Perspective, Chap. 310: Japanese Superstar Naoya Inoue and More
Skylar Lacy Blocked for Lamar Jackson before Making his Mark in Boxing
Mizuki Hiruta Dominates in her U.S. Debut and Omar Trinidad Wins Too at Commerce
Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More
Boxing Trainer Bob Santos Paid his Dues and is Reaping the Rewards
Bygone Days: The Largest Crowd Ever at Madison Square Garden Sees Zivic TKO Armstrong
Jai Opetaia Brutally KOs David Nyika, Cementing his Status as the World’s Top Cruiserweight
R.I.P. Paul Bamba (1989-2024): The Story Behind the Story
Don’t Underestimate Gloria Alvarado, an Unconventional Boxing Coach
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Featured Articles4 weeks agoR.I.P. Paul Bamba (1989-2024): The Story Behind the Story
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Featured Articles2 weeks agoSkylar Lacy Blocked for Lamar Jackson before Making his Mark in Boxing
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Featured Articles4 weeks agoJai Opetaia Brutally KOs David Nyika, Cementing his Status as the World’s Top Cruiserweight
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Featured Articles4 weeks agoBygone Days: The Largest Crowd Ever at Madison Square Garden Sees Zivic TKO Armstrong
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Featured Articles3 weeks agoMizuki Hiruta Dominates in her U.S. Debut and Omar Trinidad Wins Too at Commerce
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Featured Articles3 weeks agoAvila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More
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Featured Articles5 days agoHall of Fame Boxing Writer Michael Katz (1939-2025) Could Wield His Pen like a Stiletto
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Featured Articles3 weeks agoBoxing Trainer Bob Santos Paid his Dues and is Reaping the Rewards