The odds are heavily stacked in favor of Pacquiao, a 9-1 choice to inflict Shane Mosley his first ever knockout in 54 fights. In Pacquiao’s last 17 fights alone, the Filipino legend has flattened all but three, if I’m not mistaken. He has not decked his last opponent, yes, but Pacquiao more than knocked out Antonio Margarito in November 2010 with the way he battered the Mexican.
From a moniker of Mexican Tornado, Pacquiao’s pummeling reduced Margarito into the Mexican Tomato for transforming his face into as red a ripe tomato as can be. Not that we are Filipinos but Pacquiao will surely pocket his 39th KO victory to improve his record to 53 wins against only 3 defeats and 2 draws.
Mosley, at 39, will fight like an old man and on May 8 (Manila Time) in Las Vegas, he will crawl in the canvas from a Pacquiao blow – never to get up again to continue fighting. No, Mosley will not even fight Pacquiao. The native of Pomona, California, will walk like an old man with a cane, not even boxing but merely touching gloves with Pacquiao, who, at 32, is the most dangerous person wearing gloves on earth today.
Let’s pray Mosley will not be badly beaten. I dread thinking he’d be damaged goods the rest of his life after the fight.
Each F1 race has a thrill of its own
FROM the stands, we were all glued on the thrilling neck and neck battle between Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton. Vettel, the pole sitter for the third straight leg, was well on the way to clinching a third successive victory.
All indications had pointed to that.
Just minutes before flag-off, Hamilton, Vettel’s fiercest rival, was having trouble with his car. By dint of luck, Hamilton, the 2008 world champion, had checked in at the starting grid in the nick of time to the lusty cheers of a crowd seeing their eighth straight F1. Vettel, 23, was a shoo-in to win the Shanghai F1.
For one, Vettel ruled the Shanghai F1 in 2009. For another, he was the pole sitter on April 17, repeating the trick in 2010. From the grid, Vettel appeared unchallenged in sweeping all the first three of 20 legs lined up in the 2011 F1 calendar, after topping Australia and Malaysia. But, oops, not so fast. With a dramatic rally rarely seen in the world’s No. 1 motor sports, Hamilton, second behind Jenson Button last year in the Shanghai F1, overtook a stunned Vettel with barely four laps to go in the 56- spin race to the ear-splitting applause of a crowd always hungering, hankering, for thrills. Right after Hamilton completed his masterful trick, I jumped up so high from where I sat at the stands, as though I was LeBron James making a tomahawk dunk from the keyhole.
I had become a Hamilton fan after Michael Schumacher, the seven-time world champion, retired a while back. Schumacher has staged a comeback two years ago but, sadly, he’s not as deadly anymore. Why Schumi decided to return, I have no explanation. He has money, fame, everything. What more can he ask for? Anyway, Hamilton’s win in Shanghai recalled his similar thrilling victory there in 2008. But more importantly, it pushed him to second overall just 23 points behind leader Vettel.
Button, dropping to fourth in Shanghai after Webber passed him in an unbelievable feat two laps from the finish, fell to third overall from second. This was my fourth Formula One after similar F1 stints in Malaysia in 1999 and 2001, and in Singapore in 2008. Frankly, each had a thrill of its own.
(My older brother, Kuya Pepito – Joe to his dear friends in Toronto, is down with cancer. He lives in Missassauga with his wife, Ting. Please say a little prayer for him as he goes under the knife to remove a tumor in his liver on May 2 at the Toronto hospital. God bless us all.)
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