By Norm Frauenheim
Manny Pacquiao has never faced a risk he’s feared. He came to Los Angeles, then an emerging little guy yet mostly unknown Filipino, to ask Freddie Roach to train him. He beat a much bigger Oscar De La Hoya amid concern that he would get seriously hurt. He’s scored dramatic knockouts and been knocked out, face down. He’s been a Sergeant and a Senator. A Filipino street kid, he ran for President.
From canvas to celebrity, there’s not much he hasn’t seen.
Or done.
Now, he’s poised to make a comeback against Mario Barrios next week at 46-years-old, an age that poses a risk as hard to measure as any.
Already, he’s repeated a predictable line. Age is just a number, he says. No, it isn’t. Inevitably, It takes its toll, eroding quickness and endurance, destroying tendons and timing. But it’s also sneaky. Nobody ever really knows when or how it’ll arrive to do its damage.
Much of this confrontation with risk on July 19 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand rests in Pacquiao’s ability to beat time to the punch once more.
George Foreman did it, winning the heavyweight title when he was 45 with a knockout of Michael Moorer in 1994. Bernard Hopkins was 49 when he won his last title, a light-heavyweight belt in 2014. Foreman and Hopkins are the modern examples of what can happen, both powerful reasons to think Pacquiao will, too.
But Pacquiao — remember, he’s done it all — is also the very example of why he won’t. He lost to Yordenis Ugas in August 2021. That was four years ago. Pacquiao was 42, yet had trouble with Ugas’ Cuban elusiveness. Pacquiao lost a unanimous decision and announced his retirement a couple of days later.
I was one of the few to pick Ugas then. Ugas’ footwork and defensive skill just turned Pacquiao’s attempts to catch him into a haphazard exercise — hits-and-miss, mostly miss. It would be easy, too easy, to pick against an even older Pacquiao all over again.
But the 30-year-old Barrios brings a different style to the ring. Against Abel Ramos last November, Barrios got tired in the later rounds. The slowing Barrios energized Ramos, who launched an aggressive body-to-head assault. In the end, the fight ended in a draw.
Barrios kept his welterweight belt. Ramos, a tough and competent welterweight from Casa Grande south of Phoenix, deserved a rematch. Still does. But Barrios has shown no interest in a sequel.
Instead, he got Pacquiao and the paycheck that comes with it. Guess here, Pacquiao and trainer Freddie Roach have watched — and watched — the Barrios-Ramos video.
It’s a roadmap for what Pacquiao hopes to accomplish in the later rounds against the favored Barrios. Barrios might prove to be the perfect dance partner for Pacquiao in this comeback. Call him the wise choice, and wisdom is also a part of getting old. Pacquiao and Roach have plenty of that.
There’s more: Complications in the circumstances leading up to Pacquiao’s comeback in 2021 could have compromised his chances.
Errol Spence, the original opponent, withdrew eleven days before opening bell because of an eye injury. Enter Ugas. It was a sudden move that must have scrambled Pacquiao’s camp, forcing him to suddenly abandon much of he had planned throughout months of routine in training.
Routine, like wisdom, is also part of the aging process. It gives the aging fighter a chance to meld experience and muscle memory in preparation for the specifics he saw in Spence. The sudden switch to the comparatively unknown Ugas dropped that playbook into the spit bucket. Pacquiao fought Ugas as though he was searching, all in futility.
Against Barrios — by now a known quantity, Pacquiao figures to have an overall plan that will allow him to put his muscle memory back to work.
Does that mean I’m picking Pacquiao? No. I just think he has a much better chance in this comeback than he had in the last one. It promises to be close, very close. In the end, the real factor is his age, a wild card risky because of the unknowns that will confront Pacquiao with unforeseen challenges, all critical to the fight’s outcome.
Hatton plans comeback
Ricky Hatton is making a comeback? Of course, he is. Hatton, also 46, announced he’ll be back Dec. 2 in Dubai, is coming through a door left wide open by Pacquiao.
Hatton played a chapter in Pacquiao’s long legendary run. Pacquiao blasted out Hatton, sending him into a never-more orbit with a scary second-round knockout 16 years ago —May 9, 2009 — also at Vegas’ MGM Grand. Power makes its own statement and creates its own future. Pacquiao had plenty of it that night. In part, it’s what we remember about Pacquiao. In part, it’s why we’ll watch his comeback. Is the power still there?
But power is also double-edged. What it gives, it takes away. The lasting memory of Hatton is seeing the bottom of his shoes. That’s how high Pacquiao launched him with his knockout shot. Hatton fought one more time, three years later.
But it was clear he was finished in 2012 and still should be in 2025. But he had a part in the Pacquiao show, which is about to resume for everybody who was there and still wants to be. For Hatton, hopefully there won’t be an encore.
