Macau showdown: The fight that matters

MACAU – This is one fight aching for a win – for Manny Pacquiao and a grief-stricken nation.

While victories in the past had been a source of pride and joy for Filipinos, a decisive win over Brandon Rios today will not only reaffirm Pacquiao’s role as hero and inspiration to the people.

It will also delete forever the residue of his two grave losses to Timothy Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez and, most importantly, will spark a resurgence of hope amid the ruins and devastation back home brought by the typhoon surge.

Never has there been one fight with so much riding on it. And Pacquiao knows this is the fight that matters, a defining moment in his long and storied career.

Whether he would regain that esteemed place atop the world of prizefight put in doubt by that devastating loss to Marquez will be known at high noon today.

“This is a statement to my people,” said Pacquiao during his non-stop training in GenSan and at the height of the destruction Super Typhoon Yolanda had wrought on the eastern side of the country.

A showdown like no other. Suddenly, there’s a new perspective to the man who won a record eight division titles.

Burdened with a gripping task to overcome the heavier, power-hitting Rios, Pacquiao is confronted with a mission that comes in two folds – restore the faith of his countrymen in him and provide a wellspring of hope from which thousands of typhoon victims deep in despair and depression could draw strength only a compelling triumph could give.

And deep into the pre-fight hype days before the event, a shoving-shouting-kicking incident between the two camps over access to the gym has given the bout a new perspective and has escalated into a personal feud.

It brought back the memory of a scathing insult allegedly made by Rios and trainer Rob Garcia, as they mocked the way Freddie Roach speaks, affected by the onset of Parkinson’s disease – a degenerative, progressive muscle disorder.

Garcia had long denied the allegations but it hit a raw nerve in Team Pacquiao, which has not forgotten the slight to this day.

Still, there’s the tremendous task ahead – claim a crushing win over Rios that would literally serve as balm that would heal and ease the pain and suffering of the victims of the super typhoon back home.

“It gives me more motivation to win the fight and to focus more. I want to give happiness to the victims,” said the man they call People’s Champ.