“No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.”
--Hal Borland
By Alex P. Vidal
NEW YORK CITY -- For 17 years, Manny Pacquiao and Freddie Roach became boxing’s version of Kirk and Michael Douglas, Julio and Enrique Iglesias, and Arthur Jr. and Douglas MacArthur.
They were a father and a son who epitomize congruence and plausibility.
It seemed like they were destined to swap engagement rings and share an epitaph.
No amount of intrigue and jealousy from other trainers and pugilists could put a dent in their solid romance as athlete-coach.
Not even a boarder wall could divide boxing’s most sensational and formidable partners.
Their collaboration since 2001 has produced some of the finest and head-turning performances in the history of prizefighting since Welsh sportsman John Graham Chambers wrote the Marquess of Queensberry Rules in 1865.
Their tandem has bankrolled the fistic game’s richest deal ever imagined, richer than what Muhammad Ali had earned in the “Rumble in the Jungle” in 1974 and “Thrilla in Manila” in 1975 combined.
Unlike David and Jonathan, whose covenant of friendship has been recorded in the books of Samuel, the Manny-Freddie liaison has been written in the mayhem inflicted on some of the marquee names run over by the Pacquiao Express.
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“Walang forever,” so goes the bakya Tagalog saying.
“Everything is ephemeral: on a long enough timeline, everything ends,” suggest the minimalists Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus.
“Your relationships will end. Your happiness will end. Your depression will end. Your life will end. Nothing lasts forever--not even those diamonds in the advertisement.
Yet we live our lives like the best things will continue into perpetuity--like the good stuff will stick around and the bad stuff will go away once we obtain everything we want. But, good or bad, life is limited: everything is eventual, endings are inevitable.”
In his comeback fight on June 24, 2018 in Malaysia since losing to Jeff Horn in Brisbane on July 2, 2017, Pacquiao (59-7-2, 38 KOs) will fight Golden Boy Promotions’ ace fighter, WBA welterweight champion Lucas Matthysse (39-4, 36 KOs) for 12 rounds without Roach on his side.
For the first time since Pacquiao made a debut in Las Vegas in 2001 versus Lehlo Ledwaba for the IBF super-bantamweight diadem, Roach won’t train him before a championship bout.
The 39-year-old Pacquiao’s training will be supervised by his childhood buddy, Restituto “Buboy” Fernandez, and will be mostly held in Mindanao starting April.
It appears there was a falling out between Top Rank’s Bob Arum and the MP Promotions owned by the senator-boxer regarding the latter’s tax troubles with the IRS which has remained unsettled.
The Malaysia fisticuffs need at least $15 million and Arum remains skeptical unless an affront fund of $5 million has been released.