I saw this interesting article on a newspaper entitled "Enter the Emulator" referring to Manny Pacquiao and the person it said he is emulating, is the late Bruce Lee ( whose movie hit was " Enter the Dragon " ). I myself was a big fan of Bruce Lee and I do agree on most respect on this particular article. If you were able to watch the "True to Life Story Of Bruce Lee" - The Martial Arts Legend , what he and Manny Pacquaio - The 8 Division Boxing Champion do have in common is their passion for Self- Development and Innovation on their chosen field. Bruce Lee challenges different Masters of different martial arts ( Karate, Jujitsu, Taekwando, etc ) specifically to further improve his skills and come up with a better one ...which he did with his Jeet Kune Do. Manny Pacquaio takes himself and boxing skills to the next level ...here's what the article have to say further about this one Smart Pinoy:By GREG BISHOP , The New York TImes
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — The boxing genius of Manny Pacquiao includes feet that belong in “Riverdance,” calves
the size of grapefruits and deceptive power generated from his core. His
movement is unorthodox, scattered and perpetual, as if designed by a jazz
musician. He creates angles unlike any other fighter, past or present,
appearing, disappearing, shifting, striking; on balance, off balance, even off
one foot.
It is this style — part performance art, part
technical wizardry, unique to Pacquiao— that defines perhaps the best boxer of
his generation. And it started with a videotape of the martial artist who
became his idol. It started with Bruce Lee.
Last month, as Pacquiao molded his style
specific to Shane Mosley, his welterweight opponent on Saturday
in Las Vegas, he wrapped his hands inside the dressing room at the Wild Card
boxing gym here. To explain the way he fights, he settled on three words.
“Like Bruce Lee,” he said.
“Bruce Lee jumped around and kicked his feet and
shook his head and shoulders,” Ariza said. “His feet moved in concert with his
hands. He could be choppy, but he was rhythmic. Manny does the same thing. It
comes from that.”
A stick-thin, one-dimensional left-hander arrived
at Wild Card in 2001, his
style still reckless, raw. Pacquiao punched at high volume, seeking knockouts,
but struggled against superior technicians.
By then, Pacquiao possessed the basics of his
skill set. Because he fought with the speed of the boxers he most admired,
Pacquiao cornered opponents, made them feel squeezed. His tempo, the sparring
partner Shawn Porter said, feels
less like 1 ... 2 ... 3 and more like 1-2-3-4-5-6.
If Pacquiao’s trainer, Freddie Roach, could
place one boxing skill above all others, he said, “speed is the greatest asset
in the world.” Pacquiao’s speed is evident. At one
workout, even the comedian Don Rickles said Pacquiao reminded him of Sugar Ray Leonard.
The early Pacquiao combined feet that moved like
lightning with uncommon power for a man his size, power that started in those
calves (his adviser Mike Koncz said thick legs ran in the family) and wound
through his torso.
After Erik Morales defeated
Pacquiao in 2005, Roach decided
Pacquiao needed balance, and Roach set about enhancing his right hand. In
practice, Roach instructed Pacquiao to throw jabs, uppercuts and hooks in
three- to four-punch combinations, all right-handed. It took three years, but a
different fighter emerged against David Diaz, and Pacquiao later knocked out
Ricky Hatton with a right.
Roach divides Pacquiao’s career into two
periods: before the Diaz fight and after. His style had started to take shape.
The next epiphany occurred by accident, when,
during training, Pacquiao shifted left, around Roach and tapped his trainer on
his left shoulder. “What are you going to do now?” he asked. Roach was stunned.
Back when Roach fought, boxers mostly engaged
straight on. His work with Pacquiao, the angles they created, changed the way
Roach trained. If Pacquiao shifted left, outside the right foot of his
opponents, their natural instinct was to follow — into his left hand. If
opponents chose not to engage, they had one option, to back away. Roach says
Pacquiao improves his position with each angle created and makes it more
difficult to counterpunch.
Roach and Pacquiao design angles specific to
each opponent. The key, Roach said, is creating space and confusion.
“He still taps me on the shoulder every session,”
Roach said. “I’ll always try to counter with what his next opponent would do. I
always lose.”
Roach and Pacquiao did not invent this approach
to boxing — Roach cited George Foreman’s 1990
knockout of Gerry Cooney as an
earlier example — but they elevated angles into art. Roach sees boxing’s future
in Pacquiao’s fancy footwork.
As Pacquiao kept moving up in weight divisions,
Roach worried less about the weight or power that Pacquiao could add and more
about the speed he could lose. Roach told Ariza, “Do not screw up his speed.”
In all his years, through dozens of world champions, Roach never
saw a fighter who gained so much weight and retained speed and power. As a
result, suspicions have been raised that Pacquiao used performance-enhancing
drugs, a charge his camp denies. (Pacquiao has never failed a test.) Ariza
points to other factors: different diet, isometric exercises for balance,
plyometric exercises for explosiveness.
“He’s also just a freak,” Ariza said. “His resting heart rate in
the morning is 42 beats per minute. If he did half the work he does, he would
still be where he is today.”
In his last fight, Pacquiao contested
the junior middleweight Antonio
Margarito. When Margarito’s
trainer, Robert Garcia, watched film of Pacquiao, he saw a somewhat
vulnerable fighter who lunged too often and left himself exposed. At least it
seemed that way.
Garcia instructed Margarito to attack the body,
but he failed to keep up and lost vision in one eye when Pacquiao fractured his
orbital bone.
“Whatever plan you have against Pacquiao, he
just terminates it,” Garcia said. “What seems possible on video is not. Nobody
fights like him — awkward, quick, strong, fast, good reflexes — nobody that
complete.”
In recent years, Pacquiao honed the footwork
that Roach said he deserved more credit for.
“When he moves,” Roach said, “his footwork is so
exact, so perfect, it’s what creates the angles and wins all his fights.” Roach
sees poetry when Pacquiao’s feet pump, but less like ballet and more like what
Ariza calls “the Riverdance.”
The continual movement makes Pacquiao difficult
to time. This disrupts the rhythm of his opponents, forces them to take risks.
“It’s an unpolished but very compelling and
original athleticism,” the veteran trainer Joe Goossen said. “It’s not a continuing flow of
beauty. It can be herky-jerky. It can be harsh, deliberate, unorthodox. But
it’s effective.”
Roach says he wishes Pacquiao would finish
opponents sooner, thinks Pacquiao is too nice. But Pacquiao views his style as
boxing entertainment. He relishes the stage, revels in the attention.
Pacquiao also became a more polished strategist
in recent years. Last month, he and Roach slowed regularly during mitt work,
and Pacquiao made suggestions that they incorporated on the spot. Koncz said
Pacquiao became a “professor of boxing” in his 2008 victory over Oscar De La Hoya.
As opposed to “volume of punches,” Koncz said,
Pacquiao “moves sideways, makes angles, with more intent and purpose.” Roach
taught Pacquiao elusive tactics, blocking tactics and sidestepping tactics that
he had never used before. His style has become more nuanced, more advanced, his
results a direct reflection of his evolution.
Pacquiao, 32, attributed that in part to age.
Ariza credited the fighter’s outside interests, all the chess and darts and political
ambition, for heightened brain activity that, rather than distract Pacquiao,
helped him focus.
To beat the improved Pacquiao, Garcia and
Goossen said, would require a superb defensive performance, movement to match
his movement, an offensive assault to force him backward and, simply, luck.
Because of his defensive style and tactical brilliance,Floyd Mayweather Jr. poses the biggest threat.
As Ariza surveys the boxing landscape, he sees
fighters emulating Pacquiao, or trying to. They bounce like him, dance like
him, shift like him. But they are not as efficient, powerful, creative or
balanced. Pacquiao boasts a style that is often imitated, never replicated.
Ariza has long wanted to test Pacquiao for
scientific purposes, for lung capacity, red blood cells, endurance. He could
publish his findings in a scientific journal. But Pacquiao wants none of that.
Part of his genius remains a mystery and always will.
“Bruce Lee,” Ariza said, “was like that.”
As I write this post, Manny have just defeated Mosley on a lopsided fight. For those who watched the fight, you know very well why it was so. Manny is reaping the benefits of his hardwork and pursuit of excellence in the sports of boxing... if Bruce Lee is alive today, I'm sure he will consider it an honor to be Manny Pacquiao's inspiration and his movies used as training material on his way to become the "Best Pound for Pound Fighter in the World".
To your Success!
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