Exclusive: Manny Pacquiao – ‘Even as a senator I can still maintain my name at the top’

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  Manny Pacquiao works out at the Wild Card Boxing Gym in Los Angeles, California, ahead of his WBO welterweight title bout against Jessie Vargas in Las Vegas on November 5, 2016. Lucy Nicholson / Reuters

“I get exhausted just watching him,” says Michael Koncz, Manny Pacquiao’s long-term adviser, as he gets a ringside seat to one of the world’s greatest boxers attempting to balance dual pursuits in pugilism and politics. “I honestly don’t know how he does it. I don’t think anybody else could do what he’s doing at this level in boxing.”

Koncz is probably right. Pacquiao returns to the ring next week to fight WBO world welterweight champion Jessie Vargas in Las Vegas, a bout that comes seven months after his last, when he defeated Timothy Bradley and then promptly announced his retirement.

Pacquiao hung up the gloves to concentrate on a new role in the Philippines Senate, and since the two-term congressman was elected as senator in May, he has tackled several issues affecting his homeland, including advocating the restoration of the death penalty.

Yet the final bell had not tolled on his boxing career. In August, Pacquiao announced that he was to again step inside the ring, to add another layer to the lore built upon his reputation as an eight-division champion. He may have another calling now, but the Filipino is also a prizefighter with 58 wins and 38 knockouts from 66 professional bouts. Four-month “retirement” concluded, one of the most successful and enthralling boxers of his generation is back.

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“It was an easy decision, a quick decision, because I still feel boxing is in my heart,” Pacquiao told The National by telephone last week, moments after completing another day in the Senate, as he makes the transition from his legislative work to his training base at the Elorde Gym in Pasay City, Manila. “So that’s why I chose to return.”

He concedes it has been an unusual comeback. The interview has been rescheduled three times on the Wednesday before Pacquiao departed for the US to begin the final preparations for Vargas, but it is not through any reticence on his part.

Always generous with his time, that has become a precious commodity these past few months, when careers in politics and professional boxing have run parallel. Boxer by morning and night, and a senator in between, it has been a significant detachment from his normal pre-fight regimen, something that makes his joust with the dangerous American, in Pacquiao’s words, “one of the most important I have had”.

The day represents a typical programme for the diminutive southpaw with the extraordinary talent: wake before 6am, jog for several miles, attend numerous committee meetings from 9am – Pacquiao is a member of more than 20, and chairman for those dedicated to sport and public works – sit in sessions in the Senate from 3pm, then leave for training at around 6.30pm.

At Elorde Gym, he trains, works the bag and spars, usually until 9pm. Then he heads home to his family, where he has dinner and may even squeeze in a game of chess. Then sleep, wake, repeat.

Little wonder Freddie Roach, his Hall of Fame trainer, describes his star pupil’s schedule as “killer”, while veteran promoter Bob Arum conceded it has been “hardly ideal”. Pacquiao, though, just ploughs on. He rejects concerns that, at 37, he is spreading himself a little thin, that his work in the Senate has prevented him from committing fully to what will constitute a considerable test of his mettle against Vargas this weekend.

“For me, it’s not a distraction,” Pacquiao said. “I can still focus and manage. It’s time management; you can concentrate on both. When it comes to training, you focus on training, and when you go to the office, you do your job, you do your work. That’s what I’ve done.

“This is one of the very important fights in my career, because this is my first fight since I became a senator. But I didn’t change my training, although it’s more difficult for me because I have work while I’m training. It’s OK, though. I manage my time; I discipline myself. It’s difficult if you don’t have discipline, but if you have that you can still manage it.”

Forget “Pac-Man’, maybe “Superman” is more apt. Criticised in the past for being an absentee congressman, Pacquiao attended every session in the Senate before it closed for recess last week. He has written or co-written and filed 17 Senate bills, chief among those the establishment of a boxing committee to govern the sport in the Philippines. He has campaigned for the death penalty, in part to rid his homeland of international drugs smugglers, while he regularly handles questions about Rodrigo Duterte, the country’s controversial president.

Clearly, Pacquiao has thrown himself into politics just as he has boxing, through the nearly 70 fights that stretch across 21 years in the pro business. He insists all that time spent in the Senate, attending to matters he hopes will genuinely affect Filipino lives for the better, has not changed his approach to boxing, has not made him view the sweet science in an altogether different light.

“No, it’s the same,” he said. “When I’m talking about boxing, or thinking about boxing, it’s the same: the same thinking, the same approach, the same way I train, the same way I prepare for the fight.

“Working in the senate office doesn’t help you when you’re boxing. It’s a different way. If you don’t rest and take time sometimes you’re exhausted. Yes, there is more pressure, it is more difficult for me. It’s hard; it’s not easy. But I thank God for the strength and condition, the good health, that he’s given me. I’ve fulfilled my duty as a senator and also I’m still training in boxing. I manage both.”

The senatorial duties have not dulled his desire for belts and bounty, either. Watch Pacquiao prepare for Vargas, be it at the Elorde Gym or Roach’s Wild Card Boxing Club in Los Angeles this past week, and flashes of the old pace and power are evident.

It could be old rope from Roach, too, but the American says his hands ache from Pacquiao blasting the mitts, that this is the best he has seen him in training for some time, that his protégé retains the force in his fists to knock Vargas out. It would be a first KO in almost seven years.

However, Vargas is a threat. At 27, he is 10 years Pacquiao’s junior, a two-division champion supposedly in his prime, while those who question how he has landed a fight against one of the true greats have only fuelled his fire for an upset. Vargas patently has a point to prove and, unsurprisingly, has hyped up the clash at the Thomas and Mack Center, Las Vegas. Predictably, his opponent prefers to let his fists speak for him.

“I will do my best,” Pacquiao said. “I will not predict the fight, but I’ll do my best to make the Filipino people and the fans happy, and to win the fight. Of course, I don’t want to underestimate him. I respect him because he’s a champion. I have to make sure that I’m 100 per cent conditioned, that that’s still there and that I’m 100 per cent ready for the fight.”

Dominate Vargas as he did Bradley, and the next chapter in Pacquiao’s career promises much, despite him turning 38 in December. Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia, the unbeaten Terence Crawford or even the explosive Gennady Golovkin have been mentioned as possible future opponents. Pacquiao, though, is thinking one test at a time.

“I cannot say that right now, because my focus is on the upcoming fight with Vargas on November 5,” he said. “Sure, it is exciting. I’m excited to show that even as a senator I can still excel in boxing, that I can still maintain my name at the top.”

Yet with the determination comes the danger. Boxing’s darker side has come to light most recently, with then-incumbent heavyweight champion Tyson Fury admitting to struggling with mental health problems, while there existed genuine fears that American Adrien Broner would take his own life. Most tragically, Mike Towell, the Scottish welterweight, died last month from injuries sustained in the ring. Pacquiao is well aware of the perils.

“I know that. I’ve seen that happen to some boxers,” he said. “That’s part of our career, that’s part of boxing. But I believe that God always protects me, always guides me and also strengthens me. My wife is very supportive, my family too. They agree that I can still fight.”

Still fight, add still to an incredible tale that took root as a street vendor in General Santos and then attached a genuine superstar bent. Admittedly, Vargas and whatever comes thereafter marks the latter stages in Pacquiao’s celebrated story, but he prefers that his work outside the ring be what ultimately defines him. “I want to serve honestly,” he said. “Serve the people and do my work to my best and to defend the Filipino people.”

His time in boxing has impacted lives, too, something he can appreciate with the passing of time, as Pacquiao moves into the twilight of his career.

“I want people to remember me as being an inspiration to them,” he said. “I want them to be inspired by my life, my accomplishments, the way I treat people, the way to look after one another. I want to be an inspiration to everybody.

“There’s a pressure for me, but I don’t want to think about that, I don’t want to get distracted by that. For me, the pressure encourages me, is a motivation to focus hard, focus on training, work hard.”

As the build-up to his bout with Vargas attests, that applies just as much to each of his twin careers. As Pacquiao makes his way from the Senate to training after another taxing day that will soon blur into another taxing night, as he juggles politics and pugilism, as he seeks to prove he still has what it takes to shine not only in life away from the ring but in it as well, the hunger remains.

He is intent on proving that in Las Vegas next weekend.

“I’m still enjoying training, still enjoying boxing,” Pacquiao said. “That’s why I continued my career even though I’m a senator, because I’m enjoying it, I’m happy doing that. Boxing is my passion. I grew up in boxing. As I said, I love it. That’s why I’m still here.”

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