Pacquiao’s win comes as a salve to Philippines

If there were any lingering doubts about Manny Pacquiao’s place on the pantheon of sporting greats, they were dispelled when he battered American Brandon Rios into submission on Sunday.

 In his first win in two years, the Filipino superstar showed he still has most of the speed, skill and intelligence that saw him dazzle the boxing world and win world titles in eight weight classes.

 The manner in which he gave Rios a terrible beating proved Pacquiao had shaken off the cobwebs of self-doubt from his mind following his surprise knockout defeat to Juan Manuel Marquez last year. “He was quick, he was way quicker than I expected,” Rios admitted after the fight. “The quickness just threw me off guard.”

 Such was Pacquiao’s dominance that one judge failed to find a single round to score for Rios, while the other two gave him just three between them. The American was simply too slow and too crude for Pacquiao, who consistently nailed him with combinations to the body and head before stepping off at angles. His southpaw straight-left snapped Rios’s head back again and again, and the California fighter had no answers in either attack or defence.

“Pacquiao came in with a great game plan and I think taking the whole year off like he did helped him a lot,” said Rios’s trainer, Robert Garcia. “He recovered well and I’m sure he trained like never before because he had a lot to prove and a lot to show, and he did. I’m sure everybody had the question ‘what Pacquiao are we going to see?’ and I think we all saw the best Pacquiao.”

The Filipino ace could have knocked Rios out in the 12th round as he backed Rios into a corner and hurt him with a combination. But instead of going in for the kill he stepped back and touched gloves with his opponent.

 “In that last round, in the corner, I don’t want to get careless so I back up a little bit and give him a chance to finish,” Pac-Man said. “You know, I’m not doing that because I’m tired or anything, I’m doing that because boxing isn’t about killing each other, boxing is about entertaining people.”

Pacquiao had shown his compassionate side during what essentially was a comeback bout, something he wouldn’t have done in his prime when he was used to knocking out opponents in brutal fashion.

Probably, his role as a congressman back home and the recent devastation the Philippines suffered – more than 7,000 people were killed by Super Typhoon Haiyan – had mellowed him down considerably.

 “For all of the people affected by the typhoon this fight is for you,” he said to huge cheers from the mainly Filipino crowd at the Cotai Arena.

Sport’s capacity to heal wounds is overrated, but that didn’t stop Filipinos from rejoicing in his success. It may not make much of a difference to people who lost their family and property, but even a fleeting sense of joy and pride they must have felt in the success of their favourite icon would have served sport’s purpose.