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Continue reading In a Year of Crazy NFL Stories, This is One of Them – Werewolf Robs Bank
Category Archives: SPORTS
Journalistic Integrity vs. The Daily Beast
Last week, The Daily Beast put up an article about the use of social dating and hook-up apps by Olympic athletes in Rio. Real Woodward and Bernstein kind of stuff…
Historically, Olympic athletes, surrounded by other like-minded people, similarly aged, and mostly attractive, have been known to act a bit promiscuous during their Olympic trips. The couple of weeks these people spend in the Olympic village is something they worked their whole life for, and once their events are finished, it’s no surprise that a bunch of 20-somethings like to party it up. And as consenting adults, they have earned the right to celebrate their achievements.
In Addition to Zombies, Glenn Needs to Watch Out for Flyers…
We don’t touch on sports as much as I might like around here, but that’s cause things are already lacking any sort of laser focus. But this story gives us a fun crossover that involves The Walking Dead‘s Steven Yeun, and the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers…
Continue reading In Addition to Zombies, Glenn Needs to Watch Out for Flyers…
No More NCAA Football for EA Sports! Here’s What It Means For You
It looks like Ed O’Bannon gets to chalk up a victory for him and his class action lawsuit against EA Sports and the NCAA. According to ESPN and Gamespot, the NCAA has decided not to renew their contract to produce video games using the NCAA name and likenesses. It means that NCAA Football 14, the most recent edition released this month, will be the last of the series for the time being. It turns out that the potential lawsuit started by O’Bannon has presented itself as an obstacle to continuing the relationship between the video game maker and collegiate body without incurring more wrath financially and legally from others.
For those that don’t remember, Ed O’Bannon was a former college basketball player that was frustrated with seeing his likeness in video games and other licensed products from the NCAA and was not getting paid for it. So, like any American would, he sued both EA and NCAA for lost royalties and licensing profits. Other former student athletes followed suit and the grand total they believe stands at billions of dollars that need to be paid out to them. The video game part of it plays a major part in it as we gamers know that the names are NEVER used in the game but the numbers, height, weight, speed, strength, and how they play are put exactly in the game even as they lack an identifying marker. Some people even go as far as just renaming the players to the original name just to have the full experience. Obviously, this is a hotly debated part playing out in the legal system as we speak.
What does this mean for us gamers? Well, that copy of NCAA Football 14 with Denard Robinson on the cover? That’s the last game you’ll see with any NCAA likeness and names in a game from EA. Now, there’s still going to be a college football game for next year from EA Sports, most likely to be called College Football 15. They still are able to partner with the Collegiate Licensing Co. in order to include teams and leagues so we won’t see the game completely using NAIA teams or community colleges not affiliated with the NCAA. They just have to negotiate with each team and league individually in order to get them included in the game. There have been talks to have one featured team such as an Alabama or Ohio State to represent the game as powerhouses to help overcome the loss of the big license but that remains to be seen.
What we can probably see from here on in is even more generic football players that won’t look like the players or resemble them by number or likeness, so as to not throw gas on the fire. The NCAA is obviously spooked by this lawsuit and wants to get away from EA Sports, who continue to put players in the game that resemble the underclassmen. They don’t want to get into deeper hot water so they’ve decided to cut their losses and move on and see how this legal dilemma plays out. Either way, it’ll be interesting to see how this will affect games. While not as big as Madden, the NCAA games still represents a good portion of the EA Sports cash cow and if there’s a lot of changes coming to the games, it just might be time for them to cut their losses too.
Kevin Ware Horrifically Injured in Elite Eight Game
There I was, minding my own business, when across my twitter feeds comes this.
[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/ErinAndrews/status/318479702203432960″%5D
Of course the word vomit is going to get my attention, I’m only human. So I go looking for what on earth could be going on in this Louisville game. Part of me wishes I hadn’t because damn, that will turn your stomach. In one of those “freak” moments where something innocuous turns horrific, Ware goes up for a block and when he comes down his lower leg literally snaps in half. His teammates and coach are understandably shaken and upset as they gather around their fallen teammate. 3G pitch experts and safety inspectors have responded to these injuries by researching into the many ways that the court can be mad safer.
If you haven’t seen it, and have a weak constitution, don’t. If you are morbidly curious, you have been warned.
In a show of good taste, CBS chose to not replay it during halftime or game “highlights”, but like other gruesome injuries in years past, this will be a defining moment in Kevin Ware’s life. Much like Joe Theismann’s infamous career-ending injury in 1985 against the Giants and Shaun Livingston’s “exploded” knee in 2006, Kevin Ware will be remembered by this game.
Hopefully, this won’t be the end of his story though. Granted Ware’s injury is more along the line’s of Alabama wide reciever, Tyrone Prothro in 2005 (who was not able to return to playing), but there have been athletes who have returned from awful injuries. Marcus Lattimore is preparing for the draft and amazingly, Livingston is playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers, so it is possible. It goes without saying, we here at Grizzly Bomb hope for the best for this young man.
Marcus Lattimore, knee injury against Tennessee
Joe Theismann, broken leg against New York Giants
Tyrone Prothro, The Catch (if you really want to see the broken leg, click here, but it is really bad)
An Essay on Superhero Comics & Wrestling
There are two distinct types of fandom I believe that share a kinship of sorts, in that they’re both inherently similar, attract the same sense of nostalgia and passion, and occasionally the same sort of ostracism from mainstream groups of non-fans. These two groups of fandom are mainstream Superhero comics fans and Professional Wrestling fans. While at first glance these two things couldn’t seem more disconcordant, there are actually many similarities at the base of their respective art forms.
Modern Superhero comics are an expression of idealism, and a way to communicate stories that can’t really be told in any other medium similarly. Whether these stories are meant to be experiences that are carried out vicariously through the character, or to establish a connection with a series of characters, the fact remains the same that these stories are and always have been about romanticized, idealized versions of characters that are larger than life. They’re bombastic, exaggerated, and are symbols more often than not of things we can aspire to be, or things to beware of and fear. These stories have been told for a long time, as myths of Gods and Demi-Gods, but are now represented as costumed, superpowered heroes who fight crime or the ills of society. They’re representatives of justice who are overcoming the odds they face against the villains, be they environmental, internal, or external. They’re here to right wrongs, teach lessons through example, or to serve as wish fulfillment for the reader.
The characters in wrestling have this exact same dynamic. They’re there to tell stories that are larger than life. They communicate the basic system of justice, wish fulfillment, and a moral lesson imparted via the action that happens in ring, both meta-textual and literal through the exploration of these themes. Watching Batman beat up the bad guy is fun in a comic book, in the same way that watching Stone Cold Steve Austin put his stunner on a villain wrestler in the ring is. At that base level they’re both providing a sense of justice imparted against the villain in that story being told, be it either on the page, or in a ring.
By that same token they’re both exaggerated characters who couldn’t, shouldn’t, and don’t really exist in real life, instead legitimately existing only within the contextual realities of their worlds. In the same way that a Batman would immediately get arrested and thrown into an asylum (a theme that’s often been explored in Batman comics), Steve Austin would have been fired, arrested, and put into jail for the many attempts at assault and battery, home invasion, reckless endangerment and what have you. Yet another theme that’s actually happened multiple times in wrestling, is a character being “punished” for their in ring activity with real world consequences, despite all of it still being inherently part of the story.
Roland Barthes was a famous literature critic and philosopher who wrote an essay about wrestling called “The World Of Wrestling”, in his book Mythologies, an exposition on modern mythologies and the undercurrent themes behind them. In it he writes:
[box_light]“But what wrestling is above all meant to portray is a purely moral concept: that of justice. The idea of ‘paying’ is essential to wrestling, and the crowd’s ‘Give it to him’ means above all else ‘Make him pay.’ This is therefore, needless to say, an immanent justice. The baser the action of the ‘bastard,’ the more delighted the public is by the blow which he justly receives in return. If the villain – who is of course a coward – takes refuge behind the ropes, claiming unfairly to have a right to do so by a brazen mimicry, he is inexorably pursued there and caught, and the crowd is jubilant at seeing the rules broken for the sake of a deserved punishment. [. . .] Naturally, it is the pattern of Justice which matters here, much more than its content: wrestling is above all a quantitative sequence of compensations (an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth). This explains why sudden changes of circumstances have in the eyes of wrestling habitueés a sort of moral beauty; they enjoy them as they would enjoy an inspired episode in a novel…”
“The virtue of all-in wrestling is that it is the spectacle of excess. Here we find a grandiloquence which must have been that of ancient theatres. And in fact wrestling is an open-air spectacle, for what makes the circus or the arena what they are is not the sky (a romantic value suited rather to fashionable occasions), it is the drenching and vertical quality of the flood of light. Even hidden in the most squalid Parisian halls, wrestling partakes of the nature of the great solar spectacles, Greek drama and bullfights: in both, a light without shadow generates an emotion without reserve.”[/box_light]
This is the same for comics in turn. Here we are watching a spectacle on the page as the Justice League fights Darkseid on the open streets, or the Avengers take umbrage against the legions of Skrulls who have invaded (it’s been a while since I’ve read Marvel), and the entire time this spectacle is communicated on a never-ending regular basis. Wrestling is a constant stage of stories being told, involving a rotating cast of characters who over the course of years grow, develop, change, become bad or become good, and eventually “die” as their real life counterparts, the actual wrestler as opposed to the character wrestler, retire.
In comics, these characters never “die”, as any comics fan can attest to. Any “death” is merely a means to an end for further character development, and is almost always retconned given enough length on any timeline. The same is once again true for wrestling, as multiple characters have “died” either literally in the story, literally in life, or figuratively by leaving the company. In 1996 one of the most famous wrestlers for the then WWF was Razor Ramon, a character based highly off of Tony Montana from Brian De Palma’s Scarface, and a wrestler who captivated audiences with his signature look, mannerisms, speech and style. In real life, he ended up leaving the WWF, not taking the “Razor Ramon” character with him, and showed up on then rival wrestling promotion WCW as “Scott Hall”, his real name, but still the same character, albeit in plain clothes. In this manner his death was merely “retconned”, but in real life to another wrestling promotion. To make things even more similar to comics, WWF responded by simply casting another wrestler as the “new” Razor Ramon, who debuted to a major outpouring of fan hatred. Comics have done this countless times, most notably with Robin, Batman’s sidekick. It’s the only two mediums that have ever done this in this fashion, with any sense of regularity. It’s a dichotomy that exists with many examples, one being the death and resurrection of Superman, which is paralleled in turn by the multiple deaths and resurrection of famed wrestler, The Undertaker.
Furthermore, the serialized nature of both Superhero comics and professional wrestling, as I previously mentioned, is nearly identical. No two mediums share a similar amount of dissonance between the creator, writers, performer, and creative output. With comics, the story isn’t always told as we think it is by a man who writes and a man who draws, much like with wrestling the story isn’t only told by two men in tights who enter a ring to fight. There’s a committee or a gathering to create a consensus of how to best manage these characters, to tell stories that can be spun indefinitely, while still providing satisfying character arcs. Often this is the issue that both professional wrestling and comics run in to, what with the constant disconnect from what has been previously established, what is truly considered “canon”, and what is suddenly decided to be ignored and/or retconned out of history.
DC Comics has done this most famously and recently by entirely re-establishing a status quo, by erasing the entirety of their old history (except for the stuff that they didn’t) and starting over. While this approach hasn’t been directly emulated by professional wrestling yet, its parallel is similar to the creation of a new promotion based off of new interpretations of older wrestling characters that previously existed. In our modern state, this is TNA Wrestling, a promotion that competes weekly with WWE, yet mainly banks on the star appeal of its talent that became famous in other, more popular past promotions. It is in essence a “reboot” of all those wrestlers from other promotions, to start over with new characters, or a revamped version of their old characters, essentially creating a similar version of DC’s New 52, albeit unintentionally. It’s a correlation that some may find a stretch, but to look at the repackaging, and re-designing of a wrestling character, and to not compare it the repackaging and re-designing of a superhero character to me would be willfully ignoring that similarity.
There’s also the case that both comics and professional wrestling have distinct, and iconic “eras” or ages. In superhero comics we have the Golden, Silver, Bronze and Modern eras, all respectively dividing up distinct portrayals of these heroic characters in ways that reflected the zeitgeist. Wrestling has its own set of eras, divided up in into similar labels; Golden Era (which is pre-Hulk Hogan), The New Generation Era (where now legendary wrestlers like Undertaker, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels rose to prominence), and The Attitude Era, which is arguably the highpoint in professional wrestling’s history as the WWF became very popular with the advent of wrestlers like The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin portraying anti-heroes in their medium in a new and exciting way. This was followed by the “Ruthless Aggression” Era, which is an era that developed in the midst of a massive double down between the two main competing wrestling promotions at the time, WWF & WCW, with WCW merging into WWF. At the time this was unheard of, and the comic equivalent would be Marvel buying DC outright, and every single superhero from both companies were then poorly implemented into a series of comics that dovetailed creatively, despite immense potential. Lastly and currently there’s the PG Era of wrestling, where focus has shifted recently into a more family friendly orientation. These Eras in both mediums illustrate further how similar they are, and shows how their lasting serialized nature necessitates being broken up into Eras, in order to better keep track of how they both reflect society, attitudes, and current events at the time.
The problem is, people see the vast majority of it as dumb or meaningless, and write it off as time wasted. Recently this has started to change due to the popularity of Marvel’s recent movie paradigm, but unfortunately I don’t see this changing in a similar fashion for professional wrestling. However, the dichotomy still exists, as in both forms of entertainment we’re watching the same old stories, those mythological Gods and Demi-Gods fighting for a sense of justice, combating moral relativism, and showing us who we are through storytelling. They are the only two mediums that do it in the way they do, and if you’re a fan of one, you should give the other a try. I implore you.
Thoughts on ‘The Paterno Report’
We are all familiar with the pedophile’s playground that was Penn State. We gazed on in horror and disgust at the structural and institutional abuse that was allowed to go on. We downloaded the Freeh Report, an independent review that looked into the abuse of Jerry Sandusky, and read in shock as the details unfolded on how this was permitted to continue for so long. The report was the basis and rationale for the NCAA dropping an incredibly harsh penalty that was designed to severely punish the football program for creating a culture that, at a bare minimum, allowed this to occur and not be reported.
In the roughly seven months since the release of the Freeh report, Penn State and the rest of us have been able to succeed on closing this chapter and begin healing some of the wounds. I will not speak to the damage done to the victims, because that is their own and no one can begin to understand what this all means to them. The Nittany Lions had a great football season (by B1G standards anyway) and the university took some steps to move forward.
Today the scab over that wound was picked off by the Paterno family (I bet they ate it) with the release of their privately commissioned report, “A Rush to Injustice”. While I understand the desire to protect the image of the disgraced and deceased football coach, there really is no good that can come of it. It comes off like a child trying to rationalize their bad behavior.
The main claims of the Paterno Family report is that the investigation was done inappropriately and that JoePa never attempted to hide any information or hamper any investigation. First, the Freeh Report was by no means perfect, but attacking it for any deficiencies is like the pot calling the kettle black; the Paterno Report suffers from the same short comings such as lack of subpoena power and access to information. Secondly, nobody gives two craps that Joe did not hide information; it is that he did not scream it out while leading the charge to serve Sandusky up to the authorities.
Finally, saying he did not hamper any investigation is like claiming he did not pet any unicorns or that he did not visit Camelot. Those things do not exist and neither did any meaningful investigation.
The self-serving report does nothing to help or heal. It is stupid and simply serves to flame the fires that had died down. What the Paterno family should have spent their time, fame and fortune on was helping victims of abuse. They should have acknowledged the mistakes and flaws of JoePa, and then taken every penny they had and supported one of the national charities that helps victims of child abuse. That is the way they could have begun the process of rebuilding the Paterno name, not this attempt at blame shifting.
It’s NFL Black Monday 2012 – Is Your Coach Having a Bad Day?
The 2012 NFL regular season has come to an end. For those that advance to the playoffs, congratulations, you get to continue on your march towards the grand prize: The Lombardi Trophy and the legendary status of being a Super Bowl winner. However, for the others, some of you get to pack your bags because the NFL sometimes stands for Not For Long.
Today is Black Monday, the first Monday after the end of the regular season and the day where the pink slips are handed out to coaches and general managers for failing to achieve the only goal in the NFL and of Charlie Sheen: Winning. Today was especially bloody as we saw long-term coaches get canned, as well as some of the newer ones that probably did not get the chance they deserved to see the improvement through.
Regardless, let’s recap to who is looking for new jobs this winter.
Andy Reid is probably the biggest, and yet least surprising name on the list. The Philadelphia Eagles dismissed the 14-year head coach today after a massively disappointing 4-12 season. Despite six division titles, five NFC Championship games and one Super Bowl appearance, the record that stands out is his last two years where he was 8-8 in 2011 after collecting superstars such as Jason Babin, Nnamdi Asomugha, and Dominque Rodgers- Cromartie. The defense was horrid and took even more of a hit after changing coordinators mid-season this year. He also was 1-4 in NFC Championship games and the Philly faithful won’t forget that. He knew this was coming and I’m sure he will welcome the change. It has been a rough few years as he had a myriad of family issues in Philadelphia that came to a head when his son was found dead at the Eagles training camp. He already is trying to inquire about coaching openings and building a staff so he should get right on his feet. I do think Philadelphia will miss him because his teams always makes runs at the division or the playoffs but after the last two years, it was time to move on.
On the somewhat surprising front, Lovie Smith of the Chicago Bears was also let go just as his team was eliminated after the Minnesota Vikings victory over the Green Bay Packers Sunday night. After nine years with the Bears, he made the Super Bowl once in 2006 losing to Peyton Manning’s Colts. Again, a solid coach with a good record (81-63 with the Bears) but the collapses of recent years and the offensive struggles did him in. Last year, the Bears started out 7-3 before going 1-5 the rest of the way and this year started 7-1 before going 3-5 the down the stretch and missing the playoffs again. The end of the year consistency has not been there and despite having Jay Cutler, Brandon Marshall, and Matt Forte the offense has ranked 2nd to last in yards per game since being hired as head coach. Something had to change, especially with the NFC North offenses being powered by Aaron Rodgers, Matthew Stafford and Adrian Peterson. They needed people to keep up with the vaunted defenses he fielded during his tenure. Again, he’ll definitely find work again, if anything as a D-Coordinator because he always employs great defenses dating back to his times with Tampa Bay and St. Louis.
In Kansas City, after locking up the 1st pick yesterday after getting thrashed by Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos, Romeo Crennel was let go by the Chiefs. Again, no shock, but surprisingly GM Scott Pioli remains employed and most definitely, it’s the personnel that did in the Chiefs, not just the coaching. The reverse actually happened in New York when the Jets let go of GM Mike Tannenbaum and kept coach Rex Ryan. Again, personnel depth and the Tim Tebow trade probably destroyed Tannenbaum’s chances to redeem himself for 2013.
In San Diego, Norv Turner and GM A.J. Smith finally got canned after constant disappointment in their organization. Watching Philip Rivers regress and the drafting of LT replacements go south made the decision easy for the Chargers brass. I still think A.J. Smith should’ve been fired years ago after the way he handled LaDainian Tomlinson’s exit from the Chargers, and getting rid of Drew Brees. Plus getting rid of Marty Schottenheimer after a 14-2 season was pretty stupid, especially since the reason was because they had a ‘dysfunctional relationship’.
In other news, the Cleveland Browns got rid of coach Pat Shurmur and GM Tom Heckert. New ownership took over so they just wanted their own people to take over and start fresh considering the ridicule the franchise gets nowadays. Shurmur has a great offensive mind so it will interesting where he ends up because of the job he did to help Sam Bradford (before he regressed). The Buffalo Bills also got rid of Chan Gailey after three losing seasons so that comes as no shock. With the Bills not making the playoffs since 1999, they carry the longest playoff drought in the league. The $100 million dollar signing of Mario Williams signing didn’t help the expectations as well so he had to go.
For now, the Arizona Cardinals end the red slip list with the firing of their coach Ken Whisenhunt and GM Rod Graves. Despite making the Super Bowl in 2009, the team could not recover from the Kurt Warner retirement and have been languishing in the bottom ever since despite having Larry Fitzgerald. The GM Graves didn’t help things by trading to get Kevin Kolb and handing him a $63 million dollar contract. Also getting destroyed 58-0 by the division rival Seattle Seahawks didn’t help keep the spotlight off their ineptitude.
So that’s the list so far, I guess we’ll see if we add more names to the list. Jacksonville Jaguars, Dallas Cowboys, Carolina Panthers are probably on the clock as we speak…
WWE’s Daniel Bryan Is a Good Dude
I’m not the type of person to normally gush over feel good stories, nor do I particularly like children, but occasionally some story comes along that will make my heart swell and remind me to stop being a hate filled shrew of a man, and remember that sometimes people can be pretty damn great. Case in point, WWE Tag Team Champion Daniel Bryan visited Connor, a 7 year old boy with cancer, whose wish was for Bryan to visit him and let him put Bryan into the No-Lock submission hold. After making a YouTube video asking Daniel Bryan to visit him, people on Facebook and other social media used their powers for good to bring attention to 7 year old Connor Michalek’s wish, and sure enough Daniel Bryan visited the kid. Daniel Bryan then met him, and dutifully let Connor put him into the No-Lock, and tapped out for him. Video here.
I like stories like this. It makes me feel good that one of my favorite wrestlers is a damned good human being as well. I can imagine myself as a kid, and if I had gotten sick there would have been nothing I would have liked more than to meet Mick Foley and give him the Mandible Claw. Seeing Daniel Bryan showing up and being there for the kid is a good reminder that not everything and everyone in the world is a jaded, pompous jerk. On top of that, how cool is that kid that what he wanted to do was not just meet him, but make Daniel Bryan tap out? That fact alone makes me wish the kid can pull through his battle with his terrible disease. Cancer is the absolute worst, and along with the bevy of treatment and care people need to overcome or manage it, a healthy attitude and positive thinking certainly helps a lot along the way. The fact that this kid got to make Daniel Bryan tap out gives me hope that he’ll make it, and fills me with so much respect for Daniel Bryan.
The other that makes this story even better than it already is, is that Connor calls himself “Stonecrusher”, and his brother Jackson calls himself “Jack The Ripper” when they play wrestling video games. How cool is this kid that he’s already got a wrestling name and persona at 7? Hopefully he’ll overcome his disease, and he and his brother can grow up, join wrestling school, where Connor is still Stonecrusher and his brother is still Jack The Ripper, but together they’re The New Demolition.
Altogether though, what a great story, and what a great wish to make. All jokes about tag teams and wrestling aside, I really do hope Connor overcomes his cancer. Any kid that cool deserves to.
Why Manny Pacquiao Should Call it a Career
(Featured Photo Credit: Eric Jamison/AP)
I am very well aware of the words that I am typing will garner attention amongst my countrymen and family as being blasphemous and outrageous but I think we cannot ignore the signs. He is a hero in the Philippines, the fighting Congressman of the Sarangani Province. He is the cultural icon that has wonderfully represented the motherland and he is the poster boy of graciousness and humility. But as a fan and admirer of the Pac-Man, I think it’s time to face the facts that are in front of us: Manny Pacquiao should retire and begin the next phase of his life as congressman and full-time ambassador.
The above image is only one of the reasons why I think Manny needs to reassess his boxing career. Despite being only 33 years old, Manny Pacquiao has already fought in 61 professional bouts. He has been fighting constantly for the better part of two decades and the last few years, the results are starting to show his age. He has become more showman and entertainer than boxer. His last few fights never really challenged him like Marquez always does. Joshua Clottey was buried in his defensive shell, Mosley never bothered to engage Manny, Bradley gave up on the fight halfway through (and won despite the sheer absurdity of the result), and Margarito’s face was rearranged by Pacquiao’s swift justice. All of them were carried in their fights by Manny because he wanted to deliver a “good fight”. I think Manny had gotten obsessed with the idea of entertainment and people getting their moneys worth. He could’ve easily taken them down earlier, like the Hatton bout, but felt compelled to give a good fight for the audience and the several million viewers watching pay-per-view. With Bradley, he had shown his complacency and whether you believe the outside vices or influences had taken its toll on him, I think he became more entertainer than boxer at the moment and let up in the final few rounds. After that controversial loss, he wanted to prove to the world that he was still the great Manny Pacquiao and preached his rededication to knock the snot out of Marquez to settle the argument on who was the better fighter in their rivalry. However, all it took was the overconfidence and his idea of just flipping a switch for him to walk into the right hand of Marquez.
Don’t get me wrong, Marquez won the fight fair and square with his intelligence and new found power and strategy. He knew Pacquiao was going to try for the kill after his face collected blood and welts from the vicious lefts Manny was dealing and used that aggressiveness to his advantage to put down Manny twice Saturday evening. Marquez is a brilliant counter-puncher and deserves every bit of recognition for his game plan to win this fight. I also feel that Manny does not have that same focus required to score wins in his boxing matches. Manny’s aggressiveness is both his biggest weapon and his biggest weakness. He’ll win the first half the bout as he racks up punches but he seems to get bored and obsessed with keeping the fight going and rests on his earlier body of work than finishing the job in the end. Maybe it’s just more than fighting style at this point. Yes, you can count on punches landing and hitting but age takes its toll on a man’s speed and power and they have been lacking recently for the pound-for-pound king. While he can still dish it out with some of the best in boxing, I doubt that he can keep this up any longer because let’s face it, he has nothing really to prove at this point. He did admit to his overconfidence after the fight but that does little to quell the critics in their assessment of his eroding skills and seemingly apathetic approach in the ring. Plus, forget about the super-fight with Floyd Mayweather. Floyd has ZERO reason to fight him and probably never will. Floyd would have nothing to gain from defeating someone on the downturn of their career. Yes, three years ago it would’ve been the fight of the century but now its only mention reeks of greed, ego and missed opportunities.
We also can’t forgot about the other job he carries: Congressman of the people of his province in the Philippines. He wants to do what is best for his fellow countrymen and knowing how deep the poverty runs in the Philippines and how corruption has dominated the Philippine political system, he has made his true passion his political career. It has taken over his boxing career and it’s good that he still goes back to the well on what he does best in the boxing ring but everyone around him knows that he does not want to be just a boxer anymore. His goals as Congressman include getting free education and healthcare to his constituents and he wants back up his words. That involves taking time away from the ring training and working towards his goals as a man of the people. Everyone knows that his heart is more into his country than boxing at the moment. Maybe this is the sign he needs to pursue his new passion in life and redefine why he is the champion to his fellow Filipinos.
Manny Pacquiao has done wonders for the world of boxing and he will go down as the top pound-for-pound champion of the world. No one should deny him the glory of his legacy as he departs into the next phase of his life. Despite his recent losses, there is no reason to hang his head nor should he deliver any excuses because father time has caught up to him. I think a Manny Pacquiao that chases his dream of serving his agenda of a better Philippines will have more impact on himself and everyone that follows him than a fading sports star brimming with overconfidence and too much ego to walk away from the sport that made him who he was. Too many times we have seen boxers struggle and fail to walk away because it becomes their obsession to recapture their dominance in the past. That goes for any sports star for that matter because their biggest competition is always themselves. They fight their own physical and mental deterioration to where they just embarrass themselves because they could not let go of past glory and hang around too long. I want the Manny Pacquiao legacy to live on without any more blemishes because his heart is just not fully in it anymore and he needs to move on.
Do I want Manny to go away? Absolutely not. I enjoy watching him as a fighter and entertainer. I feel proud as a fellow Filipino to see him fight and watching him conquer the boxing world over the last decade added so much to my pride in my second home of the Philippines. However, you can tell his life has changed for a new purpose. He has rededicated himself to God and his faith and eliminated his old vices and bad habits of his life. His wife and family suffered during his career with him letting fame and his meteoric rise guide his way to bad decisions. He has moved past that and reconnected and found his new calling. When Manny Pacquiao does wave goodbye to the world of boxing, the world he has bled and gave all his energy to for the majority of his life, it will be a celebration and everyone won’t think less of him for it for walking away. When he takes off the gloves for the final time and steps into Congress and out into the streets of his province to work towards his new goal and affect change, he will know that boxing will not be the only label to his legacy. What defines him will be the love for his people and the new redefinition and evolution of his role: the true people’s champion.
Grizzly Bomb 