BAYLESS READY TO ALSO SAVE MANNY PACQUIAO!

By ALEX P. VIDAL

LOS ANGELES, California — When referee Kenny Bayless embraced Miguel Angel Cotto to protect him from harm 55 seconds gone in the 12th and final stanza and declared Manny Pacquiao the winner by technical knockout (TKO) on Nov. 14, 2009, in Las Vegas, Nevada, he told this writer in an exclusive interview, “I needed to save Cotto‘s life.”
Bayless said he would have done the same if Pacquiao was the one on the queer street.
“When I stopped the fight, it did not matter whether the one receiving the punishment was the champion or the challenger; the most important was I saved a life,” said Bayless, who turned 61 last April 4.

OBLIGATION

He emphasized that “the primary obligation of a referee is to protect the boxers and ensure that the rules of professional sports are upheld”.
Nevada-based Bayless will officiate Pacquiao’s fight for the fifth time on May 7 when the Filipino best boxer pound-for-pound squares off with Sugar Shane Mosley for 12-round WBO 147-lb crown at the MGM Grand.
Bayless was third man on the ring when Pacquiao avenged his points loss to Erik Morales with a smashing 10th round TKO win for the WBC international super featherweight title on January 1, 2006 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Bayless pulled the plug at 2:33 in the 10th round when Pacquiao unleashed a murderous rampage that nearly tore the Mexican to pieces.

HATTON

The tall black ring arbiter also terminated the bout when Ricky Hatton collapsed like a sack of potatoes 2:59 off in the second round after being bludgeoned by Pacquiao’s solid left to the jaw for the IBO light welterweight championship on May 2, 2009.
The other Pacquiao fight where Bayless played a yeoman’s job was on March 15, 2008 when the Filipino lefty ran away with a split decision win over Juan Manuel Marquez for the WBC super featherweight belt at the Mandalay Bay and Casino Resort.
Bayless administered a mandatory 8-count on Marquez after being knocked down by Pacquiao’s left hook in the third canto of the 12-round duel which was a rematch of their first bout that ended in split draw.

MAYWEATHER

Bayless was the referee when Mosley nearly sank Floyd Mayweather in the second round on May 1, 2010 at the MGM Grand.
Unable to put away the slick-punching Mayweather, Mosley lost by unanimous decision.
In a recent article, Boxingconfidential.com spoke highly of Bayless: “There’s only one referee that should be utilized in Las Vegas super-bouts and his name is Kenny Bayless. Every time I’ve seen Mr. Bayless referee a fight, I’ve seen him always control the bout with the highest degree of fairness, firmness, and accuracy.”

 

BOXING’S WEIRD PAIR: Mosley old, Pacquiao tired

By ALEX P. VIDAL/April 26, 2011

LOS ANGELES, California – Between a “senior citizen” but razor-sharp gunslinger and “overworked” but immensely popular speedster, which one could still pull the rabbit and send shockwaves to the marquee game on May 7 in Las Vegas?
Sugar Shane Mosley (46-6-1, 39 KOs) is being dismissed as “old” and “past his prime” at 39, but sources from his high altitude training camp in Big Bear said “he still packs pistols in both hands and is extremely dangerous in any street shootout.”
“When Mosley attacks, he is merciless and ferocious that leaves his opponent totally confused and wrecked – unless the referee is quick enough to intervene in a carnage,” observed boxing buff Jeff “The Lightining Rod” O’Donnell, in exclusive talk with this writer.
“In Big Bear, Mosley is so focused and trains seriously like when he was preparing to fight Oscar De La Hoya. The coaching management sees to it that there are no distractions.”
Three fights ago, Mosley, an orthodox fighter, chopped down Antonio Margarito, the “tallest tree in Manny Pacquiao’s forest” in 8th round to send a signal that he was still in command of the guillotine.
Pacquiao (52-3-2, 38 KOs), who broke his fists attempting and failing to topple down Joshua Clottey for 12 rounds in Arlington, Texas in March 2010, could not duplicate Mosley’s fireworks when it was Pacquiao’s turn to engage the tough Mexican in the battle for WBO welterweight supremacy also in Arlington, Texas in November last year.
Badly clobbered, Margarito, however, considered his 12-round unanimous decision loss to Pacquiao “as the worst beating in my boxing career.”

SHOCKER

Mosley’s stunning second round shocker against Floyd Mayweather Jr. left a bad taste in the mouths of those hobnobbing for a Pacquiao vs. Mayweather tango even if he failed to hack out an upset win against the overbearing and undefeated fellow black fighter from Nevada.

Critics have written Mosley off when he managed to only eke out a 12-round split draw against one-time Vernon Forrest conqueror, Sergio Mora, in what they considered as one of his most lackluster performances in recent years.
“But the Mosley boxing fans will see on May 7 is a reincarnation of the Mosley who electrified the boxing world years back with epic battles against Forrest, De La Hoya, (Fernando) Vargas and Micky Ward ,” assured O’Donnell.
“When you always see a smile on Mosley’s face, it means he is in excellent condition and deadly. Fans have seen him smiling a lot these past days.”

PRIORITY

His job as congressman being his biggest priority outside boxing ring, Pacquiao, 32, is considered as one of the most active welterweight champions today and has been unbeaten since Feb. 19, 2005 when he lost on points to Erik Morales (51-7, 35 KOs) for the WBC international superfeatherweight championship.
As one of the richest and highest paid professional athletes in the world today, the Filipino southpaw is also considered as “one of the most tired” prizefighters in the world having logged more professional fights than Mosley, who is older by seven years.
Pacquiao’s coaching staff led by Freddie Roach, however, managed to steer him away from extra-curricular activities not related to his May 7, WBO 147-lb duel with Mosley and praised the Baguio City training camp in the Philippines as “the best ever”.
Even Pacquiao’s Twitter account, where critics had lashed him out for justifying his “no” vote in the impeachment case against Ombudsman Mercidetas Gutierrez, had to be shut down “to avoid distractions”.
A celebrity life and “pressures to always win and satisfy the fans” were also seen as among the hard-hitting Filipino’s psychological anxieties which he recently acknowledged.
Top Rank CEO Bob Arum had sounded an alarm following erstwhile WBO featherweight ruler Juan Manuel Lopez’s shock 8th round disposal defeat to unheralded 30-year-old Orlando Salido (35-11, 23 KOs) in April 16 in Bayamon, Puerto Rico.
Distractions both in Lopez’s training and personal life, Arum said, destroyed 27-year-old Lopez (30-1, 27 KOs).

 

WHY I AM AGAINST CENSORSHIP

Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads — GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

By ALEX P. VIDAL

As a community journalist, my orientation is anti-censorship.

Because I was blessed with editors during the Tita Cory post EDSA revolution era whose dyed-in-the-wool adherence to freedom of press and expression was at fever-pitch, I could not countenance censorship when it was my turn to rock the chair as editor-in-chief of two daily newspapers – Sun Star and Daily Informer – during the Erap and Gloria administrations.

Even if some of their motives and principles were suspect, I could never in heaven’s name mangle or touch with a ten-foot pole the write-ups of our columnists — the opinion makers and so-called “catalysts” of change.

An eager beaver but wet-behind-ears radioman who wanted to dabble in print media, a vegetarian but malnourished penpusher who belonged to the Dinosaur Age, a male celibate university professor hiding in a female moniker, a dentist who loved to lecture about sex education.

LAW PARTNER

A frustrated politician who wanted to write a column so he could expose the inanities of a former law firm partner, an ex-convict who wrote poetry inside the jail, an ex-Maoist Lothario who permanently turned his back from the movement after a “rest and recreation”, a debonair but Quijotic brain doctor who wanted to preserve our native dialects. You name ‘em, we had ‘em.

I am a firm of believer of John Stuart Mill who said that “Even when the opinion is wrong, discussion should not be suppressed. Without such challenge and discussion, the true opinion would become nothing more than dogma – something believed on mere faith.”

Because of this personal principle, I even nixed suggestions to delete horny and irrational Facebook friends because I believe they too have the right to exist and express their opinions however weird and downright corny and illogical their ideas may be.

One of the best stories I read about the subject matter was the opinion made by Alejandro Roces. Actually, it was Hilarion Henares who started the series by stating that censorship originally started not to exorcise sex and violence, but to control religious and political views.

PROHIBITED BOOKS

The initial and most powerful censorship board in all history was the Catholic Church’s Index of Prohibited Books that started in 1557 about a century after Gutenberg’s movable type made books available to the public. The books condemned then are now popular classics – the novels of such authors Victor Hugo, Balzac, Dumas and Flaubert.

They were not considered pornographic. They just did not meet the political norms of the period.

Authors were often forced to change the identity of the characters in their books. Boccacio’s The Decameron was banned because the characters involved in illicit sex were priests and nuns. When he changed it to plain ladies and gentlemen, his books were removed from the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

The very first film movie board censor was the British Board of Film Censors established in 1913 but still in operation to the day. In the United States, censorship was a state matter, but the Catholic Legion of Decency operated nationally.

OBSCENITY ISSUES

Actually, the courts were deciding obscenity issues long before censorship came. As far back as 1868, Chief Justice Cockburn in a judgment in Regina vs. Hickins, said:

“The test of obscenity is this: whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall.”

Pope Leo XIII in General Decrees Concerning the Prohibition and Censorship of Books, decreed: “Books which professedly treat of, narrate, or teach lewd or obscene subjects are prohibited. Care must be taken not only of faith but also of morals, which are easily corrupted by the reading of such books.”

And on March 31, 1930, the Code to Govern the Making of Motion and Talking Pictures by the Motion Picture Producers and Distribution of America, Inc. declared, “Obscenity in word, gesture, reference, song, joke, or by suggestion is forbidden.”

This is the question that has become a major issue in our times. Where does artistic liberty end and where does obscenity begin?

 

(FOR ADULTS ALSO) STRANGE CASE OF DOCTOR I.D.

“If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.” THOMAS SZAS

BY ALEX P. VIDAL

Can a doctor be stricken with schizophrenia? Possible.
Can a doctor be a schizophrenic but refuses to acknowledge it or doesn’t know he is a patient? Possible.
And Doctor I.D. could be a case.
Never been a fan of spectator sports in his whole life, Doctor I.D. one afternoon found himself inside a wrestling arena gyrating and cheering his lungs out for Pera O. Bayong, a Filipino UFC heartthrob duking it out against a tough Nicaraguan hombre.
He didn’t know the Filipino jawbreaker from Adam he saw only for the first time; he had no idea how brutal the show was except that he was there after accepting the complimentary ticket handed him in the eleventh hour by his brother, the real fan, who could not make it that afternoon due to pressing commitments.
Pera O. Bayong, a young wrestler, became overnight sensation with a spectacular win against the matinee idol-looking icon from Managua.
Beguiled and mesmerized by Pera O. Bayong’s prowess and agility, Doctor I.D., a married man, felt he was at the right place at the right time.
And instant fan, Doctor I.D. had been transformed – a fan of the winner, not the bloody sport.

SOUVENIR PHOTO

Doctor I.D. had been forced to shell out US$100 for a souvenir photo with the conqueror. The unauthorized loot went straight to the pocket of a hooligan acting as Pera O. Bayong’s bodyguard.
“I knew I was doing (paying for the photo-op) it wrong,” Doctor I.D. confessed to me during one of his “lowest” moments (every time he was feeling “low” he would start a conversation relating incidents in the past that would make his face squirm in regrets). “But I didn’t want that rare opportunity to slip away.”
Since then, Doctor I.D. never missed a single fight of Pera O. Bayong. He never missed dispensing dole outs in exchange for…
“But there was another guy who demanded from me $200 for a chance to get nearer Pera O. Bayong for a longer time,” Doctor I.D. sobbed. “Two individuals from Pera O. Bayong’s entourage have made me their favorite milking cow.”
Determined to stop acting like ATM machine for the extortionists, Doctor I.D. sought my help: “get me an I.D. – accreditation card – so that I can freely move around during Pera O. Bayong’s show and avoid those vultures and their minions.”

MULCTERS STOPPED

As soon as Doctor I.D. got his first I.D. and using it to buttress his physical proximity with Pera O. Bayong, mulcters have stopped pestering him.
But they and their subalterns also have stopped giving him attention thus even if he could penetrate Pera O. Bayong’s inner purlieus Doctor I.D. was relegated in the “among others” circle.
After a series of back-door schemes and spine-chilling maneuvers, Doctor I.D.’s hard work finally paid off. Pera O. Bayong could now recite his title but not his name.
“Dok,” Pera O. Bayong once addressed him in a crowd. “Hello, Dok.”
The greeting was music to Doctor I.D.’s ears. It was enough for the overjoyed fan to celebrate and callously wear his I.D. everywhere he went – believe it or not — inside the movie houses, church, plane, hospitals, shopping malls!
The peculiar mannerism has alarmed family members who suspect Doctor I.D. had become a fanatic.
“But even fanaticism has its limit,” quipped a teary eyed family member who strongly resented Doctor I.D.’s strange devotion to the plastic-encased card. “His actuations are really alarming.”
Doctor I.D. would rage enormously and spew out expletives like a politician denied of his “pork barrel” allocation if his attention was called over the disturbing actuations.
To him, wearing the I.D. most of the time was normal. Those who begrudge it are abnormal or “are not supporting me.”
According to my Facebook friend, Dr. Philip Quitco, a psychiatrist now assigned in Dipolog City in Mindanao, schizophrenia is a very common disorder affecting one person in 100 around the world.
Nobody has confirmed if Doctor I.D. is schizophrenic but the disease affects people from all walks of life and usually strikes young people (both men and women almost equally) between the ages of 15 and 30. Although an exact definition evades researchers, the evidence points more and more conclusively to a severe disturbance of the brain’s functioning.
It has however been described as a malfunctioning of the brain’s neurochemical, neuroelectrical and neuroanatomic circuits.

JUMBLED THINKING

Symptoms of schizophrenia include disordered or jumbled thinking, false beliefs that cannot be shaken, hallucinations, social withdrawal, changes in emotions, loss of purpose, altered sense of self and depression.
Schizophrenia and depression are disorders that often manifest symptoms of psychosis.
Psychosis is described as being out of touch with reality, or totally involved in a reality that is entirely one’s own.
The burdens of mental illnesses, such as depression, alcohol dependence and schizophrenia, have been seriously underestimated by traditional approaches that take account only of deaths and not disability.
While psychiatric conditions are responsible for little more than one percent of deaths, they account for almost 11 percent of disease burden worldwide.

UNDERESTIMATED

Most significant, studies show that the burden of psychiatric conditions has been heavily underestimated. Of the 10 leading causes of disability worldwide in 1990, measured in years lived with a disability, five were psychiatric conditions.
Several years back, the World Fellowship for Schizophrenia and Allied Disorders has identified the Philippines as one of the areas where support groups would have to be established.
It didn’t say why, but apparently cases of depression-induced schizophrenia have become alarming even in a country notorious for joking about its problems.
And Doctor I.D.’s strange case is no joke.

 

(PG 13) Aphrodisiacs vital to ‘performance’ a.k.a. lovemaking

By ALEX P. VIDAL

My media colleague, the ageless columnist Wenceslao Mateo, who married a woman 40 years younger than him when he was in his late 60’s in the late 1990’s, once dismissed aphrodisiacs as “myth” insisting he would never patronize them despite being a “late bloomer” (a euphemism for those who marry late).
“I was born natural,” Matt, as we fondly call him, proudly hissed. “Therefore, I will do it (lovemaking) naturally.”
So far, he or they have produced a good product that is now the source of their happiness in family.
Matt brags that even without the aphrodisiacs, he or they could produce more if he was 40 years younger. But do we really need aphrodisiacs to enhance our performance?

MOOD FOR LOVE

Aphrodisiacs are substances that are said to put those who ingest them in the mood for love.
The more popular ones are oysters, asparagus, chili peppers, alcohol and chocolate.
A lot of aphrodisiacs are known to be so because of the shapes they represent. However, often than not, there’s more to them than meets the eye. Take the asparagus, for instance. In olden times it was considered an aphrodisiac because of its phallic shape. Being a rich source of Vitamin E, asparagus helps stimulate the production of sex hormones.

NERVE ENDINGS

Chili peppers contain capsaicin, while chocolates contain phenylethylamine. Capsaicin is said to stimulate the nerve endings and both substances are said to release endorphins, giving the body a natural high that is vital to lovemaking.
Oysters, on the other hand, have always been a mysterious and erotic delicacy. But then again shellfish are rich in zinc, and zinc is needed by the body to produce testosterone.
Alcohol, due to its hallucinogenic and mood altering capability is said to heighten the expectation but dulls the performance.

 

Ella’s eerie love affairs with Fr. Benigno and Jejomar

By Alex P. Vidal

Ella (not her real name) of Alimodian, Iloilo was 16 years old in 1995 when her 48-year-old mother, a fish vendor, entrusted her daughter’s “spiritual needs” to Benigno (not his real name), a 27-year-old Tagalong-speaking priest now assigned somewhere in Northern Luzon.
Wallowing in abject poverty, mother gave Benigno tacit “blanket of authority” to help shore up her daughter’s moral and spiritual values as she needed a “father figure” in her adolescence having lost (cause of “disappearance” unknown) her biological father when the daughter was infant.
Year 2001 when 22-year-old Ella, now a computer engineering graduate, confessed to Jejomar (not his real name), her 36-year-old balikbayan suitor, she and her chapel-based guardian had been secretly locked in a romantic liaison since she was teenager.
For the credulous Ella, a look-a-like of Burmese political icon Aung San Suu Kyi, the relationship seemed to be “made in heaven” albeit smeared by mysteries and Benigno’s uncanny behavior in public while they were together.
The sweethearts’ sexual tryst began when, as a minor, Ella accompanied her foster parent cum lover in out-of-town “meetings” that mostly concluded with side trips and rendezvous in motels and resorts.

GOSSIPS

Whispers from worried but excited enterprising neighborhood lips buzzed about mama’s myopia and incredible innocence of the torrid bacchanalia.
Ella’s confession initially didn’t sit well with Jejomar, who felt his manhood had been breached even as he realized he was “morally obliged” to settle the score in favor of the “damsel in distress”.
Alas, Ella’s story was only the tip of the iceberg. The bizarre romance that blossomed when a parent goofed and forfeited her fundamental role and obligation to a child in favor of ecclesiastical interference had bore a skeleton in the closet.
Ella had abortion when she was 17 – performed by a quack doctor in Cebu.
To compound the matter, Ella and Benigno, now 43, had been communicating with each other from time to time. The love birds’ private “extra-curricular activities” seemed to have remained alive and active all throughout the years.
Ella’s confession finale was a slammer. But Jejomar, smitten by Ella’s warmth and candidness, was determined to snatch the equally love-struck Ella from the jaws of defeat.

RELIABLE, LOVABLE

Ella has found the older but effervescent Jejomar to be more reliable and lovable thus she decided to junk the pulpit’s mysterious sermon giver who she felt couldn’t give her the kind of future she had dreamed of since child.
Benigno, however, refused to call it a day. He wouldn’t yield even an inch of the primary source of his private “joy and happiness” and openly resisted Ella’s demand for autonomy with clinched fists.
Ella and Benigno, talking over the phone like one of them is about to be executed by lethal injection for treason in a Chinese detention cell, agreed to iron out whatever kinks that threaten to severe their union’s umbilical cord, which for several years, appeared to be indestructible.
An emergency “peace process” had been set in a hotel room in Iloilo City. At the back of Benigno’s mind, Ella would capitulate from his charm and palabra de amor as he did in the past.
At the back of Ella’s mind was blood compact and total declaration of independence — and a scenario seen only in Tagalog action movies starring Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ) and Lito Lapid.

TROJAN HORSE

Unknown to Bengino, who entered the hotel room 15 minutes earlier, Ella adopted Homer’s Trojan Horse-like invasion tactic in the Iliad and Odyssey: as she entered the room, she left the door knob unlocked thus allowing Jejomar, who impersonated Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ) and Lito Lapid, to follow suit.
Shaken and rattled, Benigno was caught by the blitzkrieg literally with his pants down as pandemonium broke loose.
While FPJ was busy doing his script and swarming into Benigno like a harpooned baracuda, Ella screamed and scampered away like a peacock. She couldn’t restrain King Kong from wrecking havoc on the human punching bag.
When the smoke was cleared, crestfallen Benigno borrowed Antonio Margarito’s face: reduced to a crimson mask after being zapped by Manny Pacquiao’s sledgehammer-like fists.
Turncoat Ella, apparently feeling a tremendous remorse and embarrassment for aping Japanese Imperial Army thug Makapili, disappeared from the ambush scene like a highway thief.
After tasting Jejomar’s ferocious assault, Benigno accepted his fate: there was no love lost between him and Ella anymore and that there was nothing he could do about it. Benigno didn’t file a police report; he didn’t press charges against his tormentors.
Bruised and broken-hearted, Benigno hurriedly left the scene and boarded the plane back to Luzon.
Ella and Jejomar lived happily ever after, or so it seemed!

 

Pacquiao: Multi-millionaire boxer who wouldn’t quit

By Alex P. Vidal

Amid calls for his retirement, Manny Pacquiao (52-3-2, 38 KOs), at 32 and a multi-millionaire to boot, continues to bedazzle the boxing world with his impressive winning streak and unrestrained collection of world crowns in different weight divisions.

With his vast wealth and reputation, Pacquiao, a father of four and a sports celebrity, could enjoy the so-called “fruits of his labor” by retiring comfortably and preserving his legacy as the greatest and most popular prizefighter in his generation.

But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

As long as Bob Arum wants him to fight, it doesn’t matter whether he is 18 or 64 years old. It doesn’t matter whether the opponent is Jack The Ripper or Hercules. Beholden to the Top Rank, Pacquiao is.

Their “marriage of convenience” is a source of envy and speculations in the world of sports and entertainment in glittering Las Vegas.

For Arum, dear is boxing but dearer is Manny Pacquiao whom he calls “the greatest fighter ever”.

TANDEM

Even his mother, Dionisia, a laundry woman-turn-actress, couldn’t stop the son-promoter tandem from further engaging in brutal but sanctioned dogfights against multi-national foes Pacquiao met only for the first time in his life.

“Dili na ko! Dili na gyud ko! Tama na! (I can’t bear it anymore! That’s enough),” Dionisia, who once “fainted” at ringside while watching her son either pummeling an opponent into submission or was the one being bamboozled from pillar to post, would always bewail.

Pacquiao’s temerity to flirt with disaster and ignore a motherly concern is elaborate.

“My job is to train and fight whoever my promoter picks to fight against me,” the five feet and six inches southpaw has repeatedly declared.

Seventy nine-year-old Arum is the top guy in the Las Vegas-based Top Rank, which charted the Filipino’s fistic career into amazing heights ever since he left the Oriental Pacific region after losing his WBC 112-lb jewels on a shock 3^rd round TKO loss to an unheralded Medgoen 3-K Battery in Pakpanag Metropolitan Stadium, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand on Sept. 19, 1999, to invade the Land of Opportunity.

 

MARKET VALUE

After grabbing the fighter’s management rights from the Golden Boy in a legal tug-of-war, Arum now holds the imprimatur for both of Pacquiao’s title defenses and non-title engagements in the United States.

Because of his marketing value and confidence in Arum, the scuttlebutt is that Pacquiao is willing to face even a wrestler armed with a revolver in a no-holds barred rumble.

And when it rains, it pours.

After fighting the aging but still dangerous Sugar Shane Mosley (46-6-1, 39 KOs) on May 7 in Las Vegas, Arum, et al (the wily old man’s associates that include TV behemoth HBO of the “pay-per-view” fame) will continue to negotiate and pit the battle-scarred Filipino congressman cum fighter against potentially destructive opponents that include Floyd Mayweather Jr. and possibly Juan Manuel Marquez and Andre Berto.

With his propensity to break records and establish mind-boggling precedents, Pacquiao could end up fighting a middleweight ribcracker and risk his life and limbs.

BARNEY ROSS

Pacquiao’s situation reminds us of Barney Ross, a former world lightweight champion who was known in the 1930’s as “the fighter who wouldn’t quit”.

As a world champion in 1932, Ross (72-4-3, 22 KOs) won fight after fight. “The money rolled in and Ross spent it as fast it came,” recalled historian Ken Lane in “Champions All”.

Then in 1934, Ross decided to fight welterweight terror Jimmy McLarnin (Filipino flyweight champion Pancho Villa’s conqueror).

McLarnin (54-11-3, 21 KOs) weighed 20 pounds more than Ross, but Ross beat him anyway. He became the first professional fighter to hold two championship titles at the same time.

Still unbeaten in 1938, Ross challenged the younger Henry Armstrong (149- 21-10, 101 KOs), who was faster and stronger. By the 10^th round, Ross was losing. The referee and Ross’ manager wanted to stop the fight. But Ross refused. He wanted to lose like a champion. It was the worst beating he had ever taken.

It was after his humiliation from Armstrong when he decided to quit as a prizefighter and go into business.

Pacquiao could avert experiencing a worst beating in his life by hanging up his gloves – win or lose against Mosley—and focus on his job as lawmaker or engage into business like Ross.

Whether Bob Arum and the boxer’s bloodthirsty fans like it or don’t, preserving Pacquiao’s main faculties and enjoying the millions of dollars he earned in the ring with his family is Pacquiao’s call alone.

After all, something brilliant could come out from his brains as a lawmaker if they were not permanently damaged.