PACQUIAO & BARRERA: A STUDY IN CONTRAST
(A Footnote to their Mandalay Duel)
By Ronald Francis M. Dompor
October 9, 2007
DOOD’s Note: Ronald Francis Dompor is a good friend of this blogger and a townmate from Nasipit, Agusan del Norte. A CPA and Finance person by training, he is presently the SVP-COO of Fast Distribution Corp (a company of the Fast Logistics Group).
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N.B.: I had the opportunity to feast on Doods Amora’s Will to Win Part 2 while it was still hot from the frying pan late last night. Besides being friends, I am also an avid fan of Doods’ great sports writing and cutting edge electrical engineering. This guy must be one of the silent disciples of the legendary Homer Sayson, everyone’s idol.
This is my attempt at serving pandesal and hot coffee after the feast.
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I am not a boxing expert. I’m only an average sports-minded Pinoy, like most of you. Regardless, I want to write something about this fight - from the viewer’s seat – not technical, maybe an ode to two great men.
The Body Language
From the get-go Manny Pacquaio and Marco Antonio Barrera wore contrasting faces.
Barrera was all tight-lipped and grim looking. He had this look on his face that conveyed tension, far from being the baby-faced assassin that he had been hyped up all his boxing life. That night, he looked more like the guy facing the gallows. (He might as well be, for Pacquiao was every bit the firing squad.) Oh, come on! We are all familiar with that kind of look. It’s the way we look in the mirror when facing the final exams in differential calculus, complete with the mixed feeling – the anxiety, the resolve to pass it, copying or no copying, and the false threat of suicide in case of failure.
In contrast Manny had that look of undisturbed peace, breaking into boyish smiles every now and then. Signs of “showbiz” stage presence of which he is not found wanting. His calmness was unmistakable – the kind of calm that comes before the storm. Beneath the surface, you could almost feel the humming machine inside. Taken from another angle, he looked more like an accomplished sabungero in his elements, except that he, too, was the manok in this mano-a-mano.
What kind of raw passions do you think these two protagonists carried into the ring, you may ask. This I can tell you, not from experience but from being observant ( I am obliged to secure my position first with a safe and harmless preamble lest my wife gets the wrong drift on this yarn).
Manny was every inch the lover boy in the hunt for a stolen kiss or an eventual conquest. He was ready to test every chance he could get. Like a true aggressor he was the opportunist all the way. But Marco was not in the mood to oblige him. Like a virgin that had never been touched, he guarded his chastity with all his might. Never an unguarded moment was his battle cry. He was ministry of defence personified all night and he showed an uncanny mastery of the art of breaking away round after round. Barrera’s agenda was different.
Agenda at Mandalay
I am not one given to disparage Marco Barrera’s handling of the fight. No matter how good our scripts may be in life, many times we act out these scripts in accordance with the true sentiments that come out of our mental maps. Didn’t we all hear it from Oscar de la Hoja himself that Marco that night refused to let go of this hands? Where was the assassin?
I will take this playful thread from Doods Amora’s theory of acquittal. Barrera’s mental map all along was for him to win an acquittal from the horrors of another beating in the hands of Pacquaio, as Doods said it well in his piece. Marco was every inch the man on trial, not Manny. In the bar of public opinion, Marco Barrera had been pronounced guilty of a knock-down long before fight night. The burden to prove his innocence round after round was his and so Marco played this agenda quite well starring himself as his own five-star defense lawyer all the way from beginning to end while Manny, in contrast, came in like a well-heeled prosecutor with a preponderance of evidence from bell to bell, as shown in the judges score cards and hit ratings. The crowd merely counted down the rounds and the elapsed minutes and waited eagerly for the fall of Barrera.
And that my friends, I think, defined the character of the fight in Mandalay. Manny came in with a “play to win” offensive attitude, Marco with a “ play not to lose” defensive mindset. Losing by knock-out was not his idea of an ending of a glorious career. Lasting the distance without incident and finishing in one piece with what’s left of his Mexican pride was the only acceptable choice. It was Barrera’s swan song as he rides into the sunset. His wife and children were all there with him that night. No wonder, the assassin in Barrera was nowhere to be found. The hunter in fact became the hunted. And being a wily fighter that he is, he knew how to avoid the traps.
And so the fight became more technical and tactical, like a court battle between two legal tacticians, each one waiting for the other to make a mistake on technicality. More acoustics fighting and saber-rattling, than a fight to the death.
And since we didn’t smell of death in Mandalay , we might as well talk of the other reality in life – taxes – and how it played out in that great fight. Its like Manny Pacquaio being the tax-man wanting to make his quota and pogi points for the bureaucracy, while Marco kept running away, tax-evading. In the end, Marco wriggled out ( read: “won”) with a compromise deal through an amnesty from a knock-out tax assessment. (Try getting a BIR assessment yourself!) Graceful exit isn’t it? A man graduating with full retirement benefits of $ 2 m plus a share of pay-per view shouldn’t be taking unnecessary risks. Human nature. And there is nothing disgraceful there. That he didn’t do enough was part of avoiding the traps. Hey, sex in the city might be illegal, but Marco’s acquittal and amnesty was fair and square, okay? The only thing illegal there was the sneak blow in the 11th at the referee’s break.
Why The Cry for Blood
Amazing this boxing in our country. At no time in our national life have we seen women as engrossed in boxing as our menfolk are other than now. Check this one out for yourself in your own spheres. At least in our office, many of the ladies were also glued to their tv sets that Sunday and most of them thought the game was a bum. I asked why? They said there was no knock-out or knock-down. (Choker. Way lami).
So our women are not just engrossed in soap-opera! I’m not a psychologist but isn’t this a clue that indeed our society is matriarchal? I’m ashamed to admit it in writing. Men’s turfs are getting scarcer. Women too cried for Barrera’s blood ( or anyone of Manny’s opponents) which means Pinays indeed have balls.
Is this good or bad? Take the positive side.
If there is anything to value from this hypothesis, it is for the menfolk to never underestimate the power of women. Husband be careful with wife. (Nah, the better operative word is respect). Be careful not to provoke her. The cry for blood is not borne out of desperate housewives (pun intended) but by reason of survival. Many families survive because of the wife’s quiet leadership, intuitive abilities and entrepreneurial resilience. There! But lest you think I’m after women’s vote because I’m running for office in the coming baranggay elections, I’ll be quick with a disclaimer: No I’m not.
Again why ask for blood?
Because it seemed like it is engrained in our brains that boxing matches are won only when an opponent kisses the canvass. Knock-downs are not necessarily the be-all and end-all in boxing, although it is desirable - like a climax in sex is desirable, but not all the time. As what this Pacquiao-Barrera fight teaches us, there is what you call a beautiful points-win where you don’t necessarily land the knock-out punches. But a win or a conquest just the same. These are the almost-but-not- quite sort of things that make you want for more on the return bouts. Some nights go like that. That’s my take on the cry for blood, be it from a man’s point of view, or from a woman’s. But if you are unconvinced and you have some more questions, go ask Dr. Margarita Holmes. (Harharhar! I hope I didn’t stir the hornet’s nest).
So the fight was tactical and technical, as pure boxing could be and not much of a brawl. It’s like the dance of tango of two latin lovers - all steps and motions, either man or woman pretending to clash laterally only to disengage and pause for another attempt at unleashing earthly passions on the next wave. So this is why they call it the sweet art of boxing, huh?
The Manny and Marco Song and Dance
A capitalist would readily see the value proposition here for the two gentlemen to be pitted in a Pacquaio-Barrera III episode. After all, the die had been cast when Manny gamely raised Marco’s hands during the post-fight press conference in a display of fine manners, and later joined Marco’s family in a photo opportunity. Talk of political skills.
No, the appearance for trilogy’s sake will not happen inside the ring. It will be under the klieg lights.
If I were SMC’s Mr. Ramon Ang, I’ll bring in both Manny and Marco on a San Miguel commercial advertisement deal. That would be the blockbuster of a knock-out engagement everyone had been looking for, like the one of Manny Pacquaio and Erick Morales.
And what could be the repartee?
Marco: “Totoong maginoo ka, Manny!
Manny: “Sa totoong buhay, ang may pinagsamahan ay yaman ng pagkakaibigan. Yan ang hindi nakukuha lamang sa beer na beer!”
Ah, that one could ignite the next nuclear wars of San Miguel and Manila Beer! A certified public brawl store to store replete with promo girls and price-cutting.
Beer anyone?
Cheers!
// Ronald Francis “Franz” M. Dompor, Cebu City
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