Manny Pacquiao and Wednesday Afternoon Water Cooler Chatter

Sometime soon, we will possibly hear of the pay per view figures garnered by Saturday night’s bouts from Macao, China.

By now, most of us have read, if not seen, the masterclass put on by Manny Pacquiao over the game but severely overmatched Chris Algieri.

Hopefully, this won’t be the last that we see of the soon to be medical school student from Long Island, New York. It took so many of us a good while to correctly spell Pacquiao’s name and the same could be said for Chris’s last name.

Either way, the telecast provided by HBO PPV was a pugilistic success in the eyes of true boxing fans. We saw Las Vegas fighter Jessie Vargas survive a gash on his head and the pressure of a seasoned fighter in Antonio DeMarco. Shortly thereafter, Vasyl Lomachenko of Ukraine did his best rendition of Rocky Balboa’s old school mettle by fighting with only one hand. Remember when Rock had his dominant hand tied around his waist, during a traing exercise? In this case, Vasyl had lost the use of his left hand somewhere in the later rounds as he danced, as well as ran circles around Chonlatarn Piriyapinyo, en route to easily defending his featherweight title.

In the evening’s co-main event, which could have easily been the night’s initial pay TV telecast or even gone only to an online stream of the non televised undercard, Zou Shiming stayed about as special and administrative as the region in which he fought. Just like Vasyl Lomachenko, who preceded him in the ring that evening, Shiming beat up who could have been called the best cherry in the bushel to be picked just for him. Kwanpichit Onesongchaigym was dealt the first defeat of his professional career by a guy who needs Macau as much as an obsessive compulsive gambler does.

Finally, there was the main event. Honestly, the trans-oceanic experiment worked once again. Two in the afternoon on Sunday in China was about eleven in the evening on Saturday for the east coast of the United States. Manny Pacquiao fought a beautiful bout. He outboxed, outfoxed and ultimately pummeled the astute cranium and well conditioned chassis of Chris Algieri. If there is such a thing as a booby prize, then Algieri’s cornerman, Tim Lane takes the proverbial cake as well as icing.

We’ve all seen stranger things in other sports. We’ve witnessed epic comebacks in football, basketball, hockey, soccer, etc. The eyes of the viewer and fan decide whether it’s a fabulous turnaround for one side or a tumultuous flop for the other. The oceans of American media as well as those who pretend to be interested in sitting on press row weren’t likely present at the bout on the other side of the world.

That being said, it may have been a treat in and of itself because it meant we all got to hear Lane’s proclamation (while speaking to HBO’s Max Kellerman’s during round nine) that his fighter had Pacquiao squarely leveled in his pugilistic crosshairs and was set to “put him to sleep.” Did seconds feel like hours, if not days when Manny placed a perfectly timed left which sent Chris to the mat just as Lane was busy seeing pink elephants?

Perhaps it’s for the best that Macau handles its own respective laws and only relies on China for matters such as national defense. Otherwise, Tim Lane may have had to submit himself for drug testing for making such a visually absurd comment which led to him possibly looking like a bum steer for the low pay per view price of $70. Any way we may care to slice it, Saturday evening’s boxing bonanza was a fun time for many. Can we now hope to see the the bout for the ages before Pacquiao and a certain Las Vegas counterpart become too aged to do so?

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