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Will Pacquiao’s Win Help Typhoon Victims Cope?
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Manny Pacquiao defeated Brandon Rios by easy unanimous decision at The Venetian in Macau, China. Before the bout. Some argued a win by Pacquiao would somehow help victims of super typhoon Yolanda (also known as super typhoon Haiyan), which barreled through the Philippines two weeks ago, wreaking havoc on thousands of local inhabitants. CBS News reported Yolanda might be the area’s deadliest natural disaster on record.
Per the latest report, the death toll has topped 5,200 in the Philippines.
These are trying times. But can a sports entertainment event like Pacquiao’s win over Rios really help people cope in the wake of national disaster? Recent history suggests so.
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the upstart New England Patriots rode a wave of emotion as many Americans dealing the attack started rooting for the underdog team with the nationalistic moniker. On February 3, 2002, the Patriots defeated the St. Louis Rams 20-17 in the Super Bowl XXXVI, its first championship in franchise history.
Similarly, residents of Louisiana rallied behind the Saints after the football team was forced out of the city after Hurricane Katrina. The Saints were terrible that season, playing many of their home games in different cities across the country. The storm-induced exile led to an ugly 3-13 finish in 2005, but in 2006 the team returned to New Orleans. It was a sign of hope for the beleaguered area, something for the people to rally behind. As the Saints built their team up from the ground floor, so too did city. On February 7, 2010, the Saints defeated the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 in Super Bowl XLIV.
More recently, the Boston Red Sox defeated the St. Louis Cardinals, 4 games to 2, to win the 2013 World Series. This was the first time since 1918 Boston was able to celebrate a championship victory at home, winning in front of an announced crowd of 38,447 at Fenway Park. Earlier that year, Bostonians suffered the senseless violence of terrorism after two pressure cooker bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing 3 people and injuring an estimated 264 others.
“This is our bleeping city!” screamed Red Sox David Ortiz after the win, a reference not lost to those watching the celebration. Ortiz notoriously delivered his iconic F-bomb just a few months earlier, right after the attack in Boston happened. Ortiz’s sentiment was one shared by many Bostonians, who were shook with horror after the bombings.
Still, some aren’t so sure sports should have such an important role in helping victims cope with tragedy. Michael Woods, TSS Editor, said he believes people place too much importance on sports in general.
“It makes sense–the world can be a cold, nasty place and comfort and joy can be hard to come by,” said Woods. “But I think the world would be a better place if more people cared a bit less about how their squad is doing, and more about more substantial things.”
Woods likens obsession with sports, at least for Americans, to an addiction to diversion.
“We see the preference for diversion and the replacement of idols to worship when we hear about a region coalescing around a team, as the Boston area did, to help them cope with a tragedy,” said Woods.
“In no way do I want to steer anyone away from obtaining comfort during a stressful time–please, I want to stress that–but part of me has to ask, is there any meaningful correlation between the fortunes of the baseball team with the fifth-highest personnel salary payroll, and how a region reacts to a act of terrorism by two disaffected savages?” Woods asked.
It’s a fair question. In the grand scheme of things, sports are of little consequence. But at the same time, isn’t fair to ask if there is really any harm done when victims of tragedy use sports to help them through tough times?
Woods thinks there could be long-term consequences.
“Wins by the Red Sox and New England Patriots are offered up as salves to heal emotional wounds, and I have to think that those victories are short-term band-aids at best,” said Woods. “The use of sports teams as instruments of healing makes sense to me, because it is simplistic thinking, and involves not much in the way of introspection, of self, or of a society which breeds young terrorists who commit such horrid atrocities. The unexamined life is the easier life to lead and, I think, the one many, if not most, folks will veer toward in uncertain times.” (Note from Editor Woods: Let me make clear, I hope with all my heart that all the people affected by the typhoon derive every single possible ounce of joy, and relief and comfort they can from Manny’s win. They deserve it, times a trillion! I want to humbly point out that I don’t want to lump together the majority of people in the Boston area, rooting for the team with the inflated payroll, and those struck by the vicious natural disaster. They don’t equate at all, in my eyes. I am speaking to a larger shift in our society, one in fact I work to combat in my own household, the constant drive to divert attention from matters of depth and substance.)
Perhaps the closest thing we Americans have to the Filipinos and their love of Manny Pacquiao (seen in photo courtesy Chris Farina-Top Rank) would be Boston and it’s love for local sports teams. There, it is more religion than hobby. TSS writer Springs Toledo, who lives in the Boston area, offered his insight.
“Boston prides itself on being a tough town, and it is,” said Toledo. “In certain pockets of the city, it seems like every third guy between 19 and 30 is a street fighter with a rep; well, at least it was when I was coming up. Fighting is a sport in Boston, with or without a ring. And it was from the beginning. The so-called ‘Boston Massacre’ that helped spark the American Revolution was itself sparked by a gang of street toughs looking for a fight.”
Toledo confirmed Bostonians are incredibly passionate about sports.
“Sports are big here, however loosely they are defined,” said Toledo. “Wearing a Yankees hat in Dorchester or Southie can get downright dangerous at times. People take it personally.”
And do people there use sports as a coping strategy?
“Of course, sports are used as coping strategies here,” said Toledo. “When my girlfriend’s father was dying of cancer and everyone was holding a bedside vigil in 2004, he said that he just wants to hold on to see the Red Sox win the World Series for the first time since 1917, or whenever it was –and they did, and he lived to see it. Coping strategy? In that case, the damn Grim Reaper was left waiting on the porch until that Boston Red Sox fan was good and ready…!”
Toledo doesn’t share the same opinion as Woods.
“As for the practice itself, I think it’s perfectly healthy. It takes an individual out of family stress or relationship blues or work angst or ‘no-work available’ angst and offers a thrill for a few hours. Sports bring people together. Even the alienated among us can put a ‘B’ hat on and feel like they are part of a team.”
So it seems the answer to the original query is clear. Right? Some people affected by super typhoon Yolanda absolutely will use Pacquiao’s win over Rios to help them cope with the devastation. Maybe it will inspire them. Maybe it will help them emote. Maybe it will just provide brief distraction. Or maybe it will give them an unhealthy diversion. Maybe it will keep them from thinking about more important matters. Maybe it will hurt them more in the long than it helps them in the here and now.
But should it help them cope? The answer to that is probably best left to the people of the Philippines.
Kelsey McCarson is a boxing writer for The Sweet Science and Bleacher Report. This story is an expansion of thought on an article originally appearing on CNN.com and Bleacher Report entitled ‘Inspiring a Country to Fight: How Manny Pacquiao Can Help the Philippines’.
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Boxing Trainer Bob Santos Paid his Dues and is Reaping the Rewards
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Bob Santos, the 2022 Sports Illustrated and The Ring magazine Trainer of the Year, is a busy fellow. On Feb. 1, fighters under his tutelage will open and close the show on the four-bout main portion of the Prime Video PPV event at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Jeison Rosario continues his comeback in the lid-lifter, opposing Jesus Ramos. In the finale, former Cuban amateur standout David Morrell will attempt to saddle David Benavidez with his first defeat. Both combatants in the main event have been chasing 168-pound kingpin Canelo Alvarez, but this bout will be contested for a piece of the light heavyweight title.
When the show is over, Santos will barely have time to exhale. Before the month is over, one will likely find him working the corner of Dainier Pero, Brian Mendoza, Elijah Garcia, and perhaps others.
Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) turned 28 last month. He is in the prime of his career. However, a lot of folk rate Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) a very live dog. At last look, Benavidez was a consensus 7/4 (minus-175) favorite, a price that betokens a very competitive fight.
Bob Santos, needless to say, is confident that his guy can upset the odds. “I have worked with both,” he says. “It’s a tough fight for David Morrell, but he has more ways to victory because he’s less one-dimensional. He can go forward or fight going back and his foot speed is superior.”
Benavidez’s big edge, in the eyes of many, is his greater experience. He captured the vacant WBC 168-pound title at age 20, becoming the youngest super middleweight champion in history. As a pro, Benavidez has answered the bell for 148 rounds compared with only 54 for Morrell, but Bob Santos thinks this angle is largely irrelevant.
“Sure, I’d rather have pro experience than amateur experience,” he says, “but if you look at Benavidez’s record, he fought a lot of soft opponents when he was climbing the ladder.”
True. Benavidez, who turned pro at age 16, had his first seven fights in Mexico against a motley assortment of opponents. His first bout on U.S. soil occurred in his native Pheonix against an opponent with a 1-6-2 record.
While it’s certainly true that Morrell, 26, has yet to fight an opponent the caliber of Caleb Plant, he took up boxing at roughly the same tender age as Benavidez and earned his spurs in the vaunted Cuban amateur system, eventually defeating elite amateurs in international tournaments.
“If you look at his [pro] record, you will notice that [Morrell] has hardly lost a round,” says Santos of the fighter who captured an interim title in only his third professional bout with a 12-round decision over Guyanese veteran Lennox Allen.
Bob Santos is something of a late bloomer. He was around boxing for a long time, assisting such notables as Joe Goossen, Emanuel Steward, and Ronnie Shields before becoming recognized as one of the sport’s top trainers.
A native of San Jose, he grew up in a Hispanic neighborhood but not in a household where Spanish was spoken. “I know enough now to get by,” he says modestly. He attended James Lick High School whose most famous alumnus is Heisman winning and Super Bowl winning quarterback Jim Plunkett. “We worked in the same apricot orchard when we were kids,” says Santos. “Not at the same time, but in the same field.”
After graduation, he followed his father’s footsteps into construction work, but boxing was always beckoning. A cousin, the late Luis Molina, represented the U.S. as a lightweight in the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics, and was good enough as a pro to appear in a main event at Madison Square Garden where he lost a narrow decision to the notorious Puerto Rican hothead Frankie Narvaez, a future world title challenger.
Santos’ cousin was a big draw in San Jose in an era when the San Jose / Sacramento territory was the bailiwick of Don Chargin. “Don was a beautiful man and his wife Lorraine was even nicer,” says Santos of the husband/wife promotion team who are enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Don Chargin was inducted in 2001 and Lorraine posthumously in 2018.
Chargin promoted Fresno-based featherweight Hector Lizarraga who captured the IBF title in 1997. Lizarraga turned his career around after a 5-7-3 start when he hooked up with San Jose gym operator Miguel Jara. It was one of the most successful reclamation projects in boxing history and Bob Santos played a part in it.
Bob hopes to accomplish the same turnaround with Jeison Rosario whose career was on the skids when Santos got involved. In his most recent start, Rosario held heavily favored Jarrett Hurd to a draw in a battle between former IBF 154-pound champions on a ProBox card in Florida.
“I consider that one of my greatest achievements,” says Santos, noting that Rosario was stopped four times and effectively out of action for two years before resuming his career and is now on the cusp of earning another title shot.
The boxer with whom Santos is most closely identified is former four-division world title-holder Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero. The slick southpaw, the pride of Gilroy, California, the self-proclaimed “Garlic Capital of the World,” retired following a bad loss to Omar Figueroa Jr, but had second thoughts and is currently riding a six-fight winning streak. “I’ve known him since he was 15 years old,” notes Santos.
Years from now, Santos may be more closely identified with the Pero brothers, Dainier and Lenier, who aspire to be the Cuban-American version of the Klitschko brothers.
Santos describes Dainier, one of the youngest members of Cuba’s Olympic Team in Tokyo, as a bigger version of Oleksandr Usyk. That may be stretching it, but Dainier (10-0, 8 KOs as a pro), certainly hits harder.
![Dainier Pero Dainier Pero](https://tss.ib.tv/boxing/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Daiinier-Pero-300x250.png)
Dainier Pero
This reporter was a fly on the wall as Santos put Dainier Pero through his paces on Tuesday (Jan. 14) at Bones Adams gym in Las Vegas. Santos held tight to a punch shield, in the boxing vernacular a donut, as the Cuban practiced his punches. On several occasions the trainer was knocked off-balance and the expression on his face as his body absorbed some of the after-shocks, plainly said, “My goodness, what the hell am I doing here? There has to be an easier way to make a living.” It was an assignment that Santos would have undoubtedly preferred handing off to his young assistant, his son Joe Santos, but Joe was preoccupied coordinating David Morrell’s camp.
Dainer’s brother Lenier is also an ex-Olympian, and like Dainier was a super heavyweight by trade as an amateur. With an 11-0 (8 KOs) record, Lenier Pero’s pro career was on a parallel path until stalled by a managerial dispute. Lenier last fought in March of last year and Santos says he will soon join his brother in Las Vegas.
There’s little to choose between the Pero brothers, but Dainier is considered to have the bigger upside because at age 25 he is the younger sibling by seven years.
Bob Santos was in the running again this year for The Ring magazine’s Trainer of the Year, one of six nominees for the honor that was bestowed upon his good friend Robert Garcia. Considering the way that Santos’ career is going, it’s a safe bet that he will be showered with many more accolades in the years to come.
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Bygone Days: The Largest Crowd Ever at Madison Square Garden Sees Zivic TKO Armstrong
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Bygone Days: The Largest Crowd Ever at Madison Square Garden Sees Zivic TKO Armstrong
There’s not much happening on the boxing front this month. That’s consistent with the historical pattern.
Fight promoters of yesteryear tended to pull back after the Christmas and New Year holidays on the assumption that fight fans had less discretionary income at their disposal. Weather was a contributing factor. In olden days, more boxing cards were staged outdoors and the most attractive match-ups tended to be summertime events.
There were exceptions, of course. On Jan. 17, 1941, an SRO crowd of 23,180 filled Madison Square Garden to the rafters to witness the welterweight title fight between Fritzie Zivic and Henry Armstrong. (This was the third Madison Square Garden, situated at 50th Street and Eighth Avenue, roughly 17 blocks north of the current Garden which sits atop Pennsylvania Station. The first two arenas to take this name were situated farther south adjacent to Madison Square Park).
This was a rematch. They had fought here in October of the previous year. In a shocker, Zivic won a 15-round decision. The fight was close on the scorecards. Referee Arthur Donovan and one of the judges had it even after 14 rounds, but Zivic had won his rounds more decisively and he punctuated his well-earned triumph by knocking Armstrong face-first to the canvas as the final bell sounded.
This was a huge upset.
Armstrong had a rocky beginning to his pro career, but he came on like gangbusters after trainer/manager Eddie Mead acquired his contract with backing from Broadway and Hollywood star Al Jolson. Heading into his first match with Zivic – the nineteenth defense of the title he won from Barney Ross – Hammerin’ Henry had suffered only one defeat in his previous 60 fights, that coming in his second meeting with Lou Ambers, a controversial decision.
Shirley Povich, the nationally-known sports columnist for the Washington Post, conducted an informal survey of boxing insiders and found only person who gave Zivic a chance. The dissident was Chris Dundee (then far more well-known than his younger brother Angelo). “Zivic knows all the tricks,” said Dundee. “He’ll butt Armstrong with his head, gouge him with his thumbs and hit him just as low as Armstrong [who had five points deducted for low blows in his bout with Ambers].”
Indeed, Pittsburgh’s Ferdinand “Fritzie” Zivic, the youngest and best of five fighting sons of a Croatian immigrant steelworker (Fritzie’s two oldest brothers represented the U.S. at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics) would attract a cult following because of his facility for bending the rules. It would be said that no one was more adept at using his thumbs to blind an opponent or using the laces of his gloves as an anti-coagulant, undoing the work of a fighter’s cut man.
Although it was generally understood that at age 28 his best days were behind him, Henry Armstrong was chalked the favorite in the rematch (albeit a very short favorite) a tribute to his body of work. Although he had mastered Armstrong in their first encounter, most boxing insiders considered Fritzie little more than a high-class journeyman and he hadn’t looked sharp in his most recent fight, a 10-round non-title affair with lightweight champion Lew Jenkins who had the best of it in the eyes of most observers although the match was declared a draw.
The Jan. 17 rematch was a one-sided affair. Veteran New York Times scribe James P. Dawson gave Armstrong only two rounds before referee Donovan pulled the plug at the 52-second mark of the twelfth round. Armstrong, boxing’s great perpetual motion machine, a world title-holder in three weight classes, repaired to his dressing room bleeding from his nose and his mouth and with both eyes swollen nearly shut. But his effort could not have been more courageous.
At the conclusion of the 10th frame, Donovan went to Armstrong’s corner and said something to the effect, “you will have to show me something, Henry, or I will have to stop it.” What followed was Armstrong’s best round.
“[Armstrong] pulled the crowd to its feet in as glorious a rally as this observer has seen in twenty-five years of attendance at these ring battles,” wrote Dawson. But Armstrong, who had been stopped only once previously, that coming in his pro debut, had punched himself out and had nothing left.
Armstrong retired after this fight, siting his worsening eyesight, but he returned in the summer of the following year, soldiering on for 46 more fights, winning 37 to finish 149-21-10. During this run, he was reacquainted with Fritzie Zivic. Their third encounter was fought in San Francisco before a near-capacity crowd of 8,000 at the Civic Auditorium and Armstrong got his revenge, setting the pace and working the body effectively to win a 10-round decision. By then the welterweight title had passed into the hands of Freddie Cochran.
Hammerin’ Henry (aka Homicide Hank) Armstrong was named to the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the inaugural class of 1990. Fritzie Zivic followed him into the Hall three years later.
Active from 1931 to 1949, Zivic lost 65 of his 231 fights – the most of anyone in the Hall of Fame, a dubious distinction – but there was yet little controversy when he was named to the Canastota shrine because one would be hard-pressed to find anyone who had fought a tougher schedule. Aside from Armstrong and Jenkins, he had four fights with Jake LaMotta, four with Kid Azteca, three with Charley Burley, two with Sugar Ray Robinson, two with Beau Jack, and singles with the likes of Billy Conn, Lou Ambers, and Bob Montgomery. Of the aforementioned, only Azteca, in their final meeting in Mexico City, and Sugar Ray, in their second encounter, were able to win inside the distance.
By the way, it has been written that no event of any kind at any of the four Madison Square Gardens ever drew a larger crowd than the crowd that turned out on Jan. 17, 1941, to see the rematch between Fritzie Zivic and Henry Armstrong. Needless to say, prizefighting was big in those days.
A recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling, TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2008 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020.
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Jai Opetaia Brutally KOs David Nyika, Cementing his Status as the World’s Top Cruiserweight
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In his fifth title defense, lineal cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia (27-0, 21 KOs) successfully defended his belt with a brutal fourth-round stoppage of former sparring partner David Nyika. The bout was contested in Broadbeach, Queensland, Australia where Opetaia won the IBF title in 2022 with a hard-earned decision over Maris Briedis with Nyika on the undercard. Both fighters reside in the general area although Nyika, a former Olympic bronze medalist, hails from New Zealand.
The six-foot-six Nyika, who was undefeated in 10 pro fights with nine KOs, wasn’t afraid to mix it up with Opetaia although had never fought beyond five rounds and took the fight on three weeks’ notice when obscure German campaigner Huseyin Cinkara suffered an ankle injury in training and had to pull out. He wobbled Opetaia in the second round in a fight that was an entertaining slugfest for as long as it lasted.
In round four, the champion but Nyika on the canvas with his patented right uppercut and then finished matters moments later with a combination climaxed with an explosive left hand. Nyika was unconscious before he hit the mat.
Opetaia’s promoter Eddie Hearn wants Opetaia to unify the title and then pursue a match with Oleksandr Usyk. Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez, a Golden Boy Promotions fighter, holds the WBA and WBO versions of the title and is expected to be Opetaia’s next opponent. The WBC diadem is in the hands of grizzled Badou Jack.
Other Fights of Note
Brisbane heavyweight Justis Huni (12-0, 7 KOs) wacked out overmatched South African import Shaun Potgieter (10-2), ending the contest at the 33-second mark of the second round. The 25-year-old, six-foot-four Huni turned pro in 2020 after losing a 3-round decision to two-time Olympic gold medalist Bakhodir Jalolov. There’s talk of matching him with England’s 20-year-old sensation Moses Itauma which would be a delicious pairing.
Eddie Hearn’s newest signee Teremoana Junior won his match even quicker, needing less than a minute to dismiss Osasu Otobo, a German heavyweight of Nigerian descent.
The six-foot-six Teremoana, who akin to Huni hails from Brisbane and turned pro after losing to the formidable Jalolov, has won all six of his pro fights by knockout while answering the bell for only eight rounds. He has an interesting lineage; his father is from the Cook Islands.
Rising 20-year-old Max “Money” McIntyre, a six-foot-three super middleweight, scored three knockdowns en route to a sixth-round stoppage of Abdulselam Saman, advancing his record to 7-0 (6 KOs). As one can surmise, McIntyre is a big fan of Floyd Mayweather.
The Opetaia-Nyika fight card aired on DAZN pay-per-view (39.99) in the Antipodes and just plain DAZN elsewhere.
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