Pacquiao is the Ali of our time

After beating Miguel Cotto on November 14th in Las Vegas in a record-breaking performance, Manny Pacquiao gave a concert. The very same night, outdoors at Mandalay Bay. It happened after the post-fight presser, during which he was about as likable as any athlete you will ever see. He laughed, he joked, he gave a sample of what was to be heard at his concert - and perhaps the best part of it was that he wasn't even trying, he was just being his usual happy self. I know of no comptemporary athlete who has a more winning personality.

I've always said that if I could go back to any era I wasn't around for it would be the 1960s, and one of the main reasons why is Muhammad Ali. As he is to everyone else, the man is just so fascinating to me. His vibrance outside of the ring and overall cultural significance were a combination I felt no modern athlete came close to matching. This bothered me, as I longed for the guy who would be the Ali of my era.

That was until it hit me and I realized that that guy is right here in front of me, right now. Pacquiao is not a cultural icon in America because he is a foreigner here, but he is the one shining hope of the Philippines. By himself he represents all of the pride and joy of a famously downtrodden and despondent country, and he recognizes it. He has run for political office there before and will do so again in May, and judging from his exceeding charitableness he seems to think the respnsibility is solely upon himself to cure his ailing nation. That's naive, obviously, but it shows his incredible heart.

As Jim Lampley said during the Cotto fight, the Manny Pacquiao story just gets better every time. A little kid from a place that is synonymous with poverty grows up to become a sporting legend, doing things in the ring that conventional boxing wisdon says aren't supposed to happen. His stunningly accomplished career has allowed him to acquire wealth which has enabled him to help his people, and achieve international fame and acclaimation which makes them proud. He is a singer, his own action hero in movies, he is everything. If it were a movie Disney would script it, because it sounds like one of those dramatic fairy tales that liberally stretches the bounds of the imagination. It seems too good to be true, but as they say truth is stranger than fiction.

Like Ali, Pac also has a notable supporting cast. Whereas Ali had Dundee, Pacheco, and Brown, Manny has the talkative Freddie Roach, who is a star in his own right - in fact he may be the most famous boxing trainer of all-time. He and Manny's working relationship exists on sometimes tulmutuous give-and-take terms, and recently we learned that Pacquiao's strength and conditioning coach, Alex Ariza, and advisor, Michael Koncz, basically hate each other (Roach and Koncz don't exactly seem crazy about each other, either). Ariza and Koncz don't carry the same name recognition as Pacheco and Brown, but after a while, as Manny gets bigger and bigger, they will get closer to that kind of notoriety.

And more than that they just add discord to an already lively camp, contributing to the general chaos that encircles the champion's life. Back home Pacquiao is escorted around in bullet-proof vehicles, his house and the basketball games he plays in on the courts he built are surrounded by armed guards. The point is, like with Ali, the drama that envelops Manny Pacquiao's existence is crazy.

But the parallel I see between the two men that I feel is the key to this analogy are the effervescent personalities that they share. Ali's was born out of a need for attention and a desire to entertain. He was a natural showman. We saw this in his countless hilarious run-ins with Howard Cossel and an abundance of other instances, but as Bill Simmons once pointed out Ali was like this all of the time, he clowned around 24/7, to the point that he was known to just fall asleep anywhere, almost from exhaustion.

Manny doesn't have Ali's knack for hijinks, but in his own way he is just as charismatic. He reminds me of a post-Vietnam Ali, when the public opinion about the war changed and The Greatest went from villain to hero. Pacquiao is just silly, goofy, happy and smiling all of the time, the joyous innocence of a little boy. I have never seen a more jovial person; he seems stoked about just being alive.

The interesting thing about that concert is that it would have taken place whether he had won or lost to Cotto. It was already scheduled before the fight took place. This can be taken as a sign of the confidence the little man possesses right now, and almost certainly that had something to do with it; he is on an incredible run right now and probably feels unbeatable, as evidenced by the fact that he accepted (without hesitation) the nearest possible date (March 13th) for the upcoming mega-fight with Mayweather. But it also goes to show that nothing, not even losing, will stop him from having fun.

It was reported recently that Manny, like Ali, Jordan, Tiger, and countless other superstar athletes, just athletes, and men in general, is (allegedly, I guess) not the best husband. Actually, Pacquiao has long been known as something of a playboy. This side of him runs counter to his very religious public persona, but it is even less shocking than when we have heard similar news about other athletes. The dude is always having the time of his life; what would be surprising about him not being a one-woman man? Nothing. If anything, it should be expected.

Thirty years from now, they will make a biop called Manny, and it will depict an icon in his time. I hope it does as good a job as Ali did in trying to accomplish a similar goal. Whatever the case, I'm just glad that, this time, I get to witness the story in real time.