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No turkeys: Floyd Maweather, Manny Pacquiao love their jobs
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One Boxing Guy’s Reasons To Be Thankful
1. For the dazzling displays of the still improving Manny Pacquiao.
2. For the boxing clever ring artistry, and it is that, of Floyd Joy Mayweather, Jr.
3. That Dana White, stunned by the boxing resurgence, has finally shut the hell up. Mind your own store, White Man. Most of us have grown beyond the view that it's either MMA or boxing but not both.
4. That so many Pacnuthuggers are expanding their view and embracing good fights and good fighters even if they are not Pinoys.
5. That Mayweather almost alone has kept what is euphemistically called “the urban core” (read younger African Americans) interested in boxing or at least in him. But where are the next Mayweathers?
6. That the “dry spell” of Mexican ring icons has to end soon. Maybe Saul Alvarez, the Carrot Top, will he rise up as an icon from boxing’s greatest assembly line. if not him, there will be another Barrera, another Morales coming along.
7. For the unmitigated pleasure Pacman finds in being Pacman and the good feeling it engenders not only in his countrymen but anyone who watches him in and out of the ring. Frankie Randall, conqueror of a Mexican icon named Chavez, used to say, “I love my job!” But “The Surgeon” had nothing on how Megamanny enjoys every aspect of his chosen work. Come to think of it, the only fighter extant who revels in the rigors and discipline of training as much as Manny is Floyd.
8. While ring deaths and serious injuries do not take any long holidays from boxing there is no doubt the emergency medical response has improved greatly in most boxing jurisdictions.
9. That Showtime has never rolled over and quit even though its coffers can’t match that of Big Magilla HBO. Would that a third entity—can you say the NBC Universal-Comcast conglomeration—would add another place where fight promoters could peddle their wares.
10. They say justice delayed is justice denied. But the delay for Yo Paulie Malignaggi hasn’t been long thanks to his nonstop mouth and rightful agitation. I’m not rooting against Juan Diaz on Dec. 12 in Chicago but I am rooting FOR Malignaggi.
11. For all the young bucks who keep boxing humming on the websites, big and small. And that some print refugees such as Norm Fraunheim, Ron Borges, Colin Seymour and yours truly can add our seasoned voices to the cacophony. There's some bright literary lights among the Young Lions, including TK Stewart, Brett Matteo Alderson, Mitch Abramson, John Chavez, Solid Gold Cliff Rold, and others. Internet boxing writing is no longer a joke and put older lions such as Steve Kim, Dan Rafael, Kevin Iole, Mike Woods and Ponytail Doug Fischer in the merry mix as well.
12. Did I mention the unbridled, unrestrained joy that Pacquiao has brought to his storybook career? Yeah, I guess I did. Whenever he is seen in public, Manny looks like the kid under the Christmas tree who can’t believe he got that shiny, red Schwinn bike he was dreaming of.
13. Because maybe, just maybe unless his chin betrays him, David Haye will add "flash" to the dull as dishwater heavyweight division.
14. That it won't be long now before China and India produce their own storybook boxing heroes, that those countries will mint their own Manny.
15. That Coach Freddie Roach may inspire younger trainers much like Pacman inspires the Nonito Donaires and Marvin Sonsonas.
(mlcmarley@aol.com)
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