From the Boondocks to the Big Time, The Wild Saga of Manny Pacquiao’s Sidekick Sean Gibbons

On Saturday at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Manny Pacquiao will attempt to become the first boxer to enter the Boxing Hall of Fame and win a world title in the same year. Standing in his way is defending WBC welterweight champion Mario Barrios.

If Pacquiao can pull it off – at age 46, he’s returning to the squared circle after a four-year absence – it will rank among the greatest comebacks in sports history.

During media week in Las Vegas, wherever the famous Filipino appears, his advisor Sean Gibbons will inevitably be close by. And Gibbons has forged a comeback of his own that is no less remarkable. In 2004, his name was mud and it was widely assumed that he would retreat to the fringes of the sport, a small potato in a world of small potatoes. To the contrary….but we are getting ahead of ourselves.

To say that someone has paid his dues is resorting to a cliché, but in Sean Gibbons case, it’s no hackneyed sticker. If you could roll back the clock thirty years, you would find Gibbons barreling along the backroads of America’s heartland in a Honda hatchback with a carful of boxers for company. He knew all the tank towns. (The snarky term “tank town” originated in the days of vaudeville and referenced towns where the tallest structure was the municipal water tower.)

According to a 2006 story by Geoffrey Gray in the New York Times, Gibbons put 300,000 miles on that Honda. On long trips, they drove through the night and slept in the car to save money. The venues where the boxers fought often had no dressing room and the fighters were paid in cash.

Gibbons’ merry band of leather-pushers jokingly named their clique the Knucklehead Boxing Club.

Sean Gibbons had 24 documented fights and likely a few more under assumed names. Few made the papers and, if they had, his name should have been prefaced by the words “late sub.” Referencing an early fight in Tulsa, he said, “I promised [the promoter] a fighter and I couldn’t deliver, so I delivered myself.”

Gibbons’ mentor was his uncle Pat O’Grady who navigated his son Sean O’Grady (who was quite good) to the WBA lightweight title, but is best remembered as the founding father of the short-lived American Athletic Association. After creating the body, which he operated out of his home in Oklahoma City, Pat made a match for his son-in-law Monte Masters for the WAA world heavyweight title. Masters stopped Tony Fulilangi, the Tongan Torpedo, in the 14^th round.

Monte Masters WAA title reign didn’t last long. When Monte divorced Pat Grady’s daughter Rosie, Pat defrocked him.

Gibbons was working in Las Vegas as an assistant matchmaker for Top Rank in January of 2004 when the FBI barged into the Top Rank offices with a search warrant. For the feds, it was the culmination of a 20-month undercover probe conducted with the assistance of the New York Police Department into allegations of fixed fights, weight tampering, forged identities, and forged medical documents.

Top Rank honcho Bob Arum wasn’t accused of being directly involved in any of the alleged transgressions, but thought it prudent to cleave someone from the company. That someone was Gibbons who was let go on Jan. 13, 2004.

For a time, Sean Gibbons was the poster boy of what Jimmy Cannon famously called the red light district of sports. “Sean Gibbons looks like bum of the month in Top Rank boxing probe” read the headline above John L. Smith’s column in the January 28, 2004 issue of the Las Vegas Review Journal.

When asked why Gibbons was terminated, Top Rank attorney Richard Wright said, “for unspecified reasons” (translation: the brouhaha demanded a fall guy).

This reporter envisions Arum saying his goodbye: “No hard feelings, pal, you’re well-liked around here and, by the way, you’re getting a nice severance package.”

In this imaginary scenario, there is no cash involved. The severance involves introductions to the right people so that Gibbons can stay relevant in the sport. And to say that Sean has remained relevant would be an understatement. Boxing insiders in Mexico and the Philippines are well-acquainted with Sean Gibbons.

For a time, Gibbons lived under the same roof with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. His unofficial title was babysitter. Chavez Jr, who has been in the news quite a bit lately, was known for putting bad things in his body and ballooning up in weight between fights.

It is in the Philippines, however, where Gibbons’ name is most widely recognized. It accrues from his association with Manny Pacquiao. They hooked-up in 2007 following Pac Man’s controversial loss to Jeff Horn in Brisbane Australia. When Pacquiao left boxing for politics, Gibbons stayed busy keeping tabs on the boxers associated with MP Promotions, Pacquiao’s company.

“If you’re a talented fighter nursing dreams of becoming a world champion, there is one guy you need to get in touch with,” wrote Nick Giongco in a 2023 story for the Daily Tribune, an English-language Filipino newspaper. That guy is Sean Gibbons, “a do-it-all boxing man who is a big daddy to just about every [important] Filipino fighter.”

“When we come to Las Vegas to train, Gibbons helps us with accommodations, rental cars, whatever we need, and I am so grateful to him,” says two-time Olympian Eumir Marcial who will appear on the undercard of Saturday’s show.

Sean Gibbons is 58 years old now and his sideburns aren’t as long as they were in the days when his co-workers fondly addressed him as Elvis, but he has maintained his youthful appearance. Life for a facilitator in the fight game can be stressful, but Sean is by nature affable; in public he never looks stressed. And he would tell you that while he is still having fun, the most fun he had ever had was working for his colorful uncle Pat O’Grady during those madcap days when he was in his early 20s and still learning the ropes.

O’Grady had a gruff exterior, but was very loyal to his fighters. “Pat taught me to respect all fighters, especially those guys who grind it out on the club level. I learned to respect anybody who goes up those three steps into the ring,” Gibbons told MaxBoxing’s Bill Tibbs. (Pat O’Grady passed away in 1988, but the Knucklehead Boxing Club lives on in the form of the Knucklehead Gym, a boxing gym that sits behind a spacious home with a 12-car garage in a quiet neighborhood in southeast Las Vegas. The gym is run by Sean’s son as Sean is out of town most of the time.)

By the way, the feds were not able to pin anything on Sean Gibbons. Fixed fights for the purpose of a betting coup have pretty much disappeared and were never as common as Hollywood would have it. Nowadays, it’s hard to distinguish between a fixed fight and clever matchmaking, a gray area made less gray on those rare occasions when an opponent goes off script and things go haywire (think Ross Puritty’s TKO of Wladimir Klitschko at Kiev in 1998).

In seeking to win another title at his advanced age, Manny Pacquiao may be tilting at windmills. The smart money is on Mario Barrios. But whatever the outcome, Sean Gibbons can take satisfaction in knowing that he landed on his feet when others assumed he would go back to the boondocks and fade away.

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