A lot of armchair boxing tacticians have been debating the question of who the better fighter is between Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao and Oscar “Golden Boy” De La Hoya after word got out of their projected superfight on December 6. Today’s Inquirer headline screamed: $100-M fight: Pacquiao vs. De La Hoya.

The tale of the tape doesn’t say it all, and reveals only the more superficial aspects of this much-anticipated clash of titans.

De La Hoya

Ht. – 5’10.5”
Wt. – 150 lb.
Reach – 73”
Age – 35

Pacquiao

Ht. – 5’6.5”
Wt. – 135 lb.
Reach – 67”
Age - 29

Manny is clearly the underdog, as the size differential is dramatic. Aside from heft, ODLH has significantly longer reach. Manny may have an edge, age-wise, but that advantage is easily offset by Oscar’s wiliness and years of experience. It seems obvious that Pacman will be pummeled if he goes toe-to-toe against the Golden Boy. Read the rest of this entry »

The blockbuster fight between Manny Pacquiao and Oscar De La Hoya will push through on December 6, according to reports.

The official announcement is set to be made in a few hours for what is estimated to be one of the richest purses in boxing history, to top U.S. $ 100 million. Pacquiao will most likely receive a lesser share of what the Golden Boy will get, but not that much smaller,and certainly more than Manny ever earned before, or will hope to earn in the near future. My guess is he will eventually cash in in the U.S. $ 30 million range, depending on the pay-for-view receipts. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo credit from foxsports.com

It wasn’t nearly as lopsided as the final score would seem to indicate. The Spaniards fought gallantly, and kept apace of the Americans with every basket and rebound, and the game went down the wire. This wasn’t a replay of the earlier blowout suffered by Spain in the hands of the U.S. during the eliminations. The Americans reached the finals with a 7-0 card and won by an average of 30 points. This was supposed to be a walk in the park. It wasn’t. Read the rest of this entry »

In your dreams (or nightmares, depending).

But now that I have your attention, let me get to the point of this post, which is to jump right into the inevitable finger-pointing bandwagon on our dismal showing in the Beijing Olympics. Not that medal shutouts are anything new to us. The country has failed to win a single medal in any of the past three Olympics (Sydney, Athens and now Beijing).

And with Mongolia winning its first gold at the 2008 Olympics (in judo), the Philippines now holds the dubious record for the most medals without a gold. Even war-torn Afghanistan managed to break into the medal tally. Read the rest of this entry »

Life changes can happen in an instant. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Beijing Olympics, where the amazing record-breaking achievements of world-class athletes like American swimmer Michael Phelps, with seven gold medals and counting, are attained with only fractions of a second to spare. For instance, Phelps roared back from seventh place at the 50-meter mark to out-touch Serb Milorad Cavic by one-one hundredths of a second to win his seventh gold medal, tying Mark Spitz’s record haul from the 1972 Munich Games.

But misfortune also takes mere seconds to unfold. Behind the glitter and hoopla of the “greatest show on earth”, are tragedies which occur without warning, changing people’s lives forever. American tourist Todd Bachman, father of former UCLA All-American and 2004 volleyball Olympian Elisabeth “Wiz” Bachman McCutcheon, was killed while sightseeing in Beijing by a 47-year-old, knife-wielding Chinese assailant, who later committed suicide by leaping 130 feet from a balcony on the 13th-century Drum Tower, located 5 miles from the Olympic Games site. His wife was gravely injured, although Elisabeth was unharmed.

Surely one of the more poignant tales behind the Olympics is that of Chinese dancer Liu Yan, who was seriously injured during a rehearsal for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic games just days before the show, and faces the prospect of being paralyzed for the rest of her life. Considered one of the country’s top classical Chinese dancers, Liu Yan, a graduate of the prestigious Beijing Dance Academy, was preparing for the performance of a lifetime: the only solo dance in a four-hour spectacular that was expected to be seen by a global audience of more than one billion people. During a rehearsal, she leaped toward a moving platform that malfunctioned and plunged about 10 feet into a shaft, landing on her back and breaking her spine. Read the rest of this entry »