Has Manny lost killer's instinct?

WBO welterweight champion Rep. Manny Pacquiao went the full route in his last three fights against Joshua Clottey, Antonio Margarito and Sugar Shane Mosley in that order.

Clottey was never in danger of going down, electing to fight defensively to stay on his feet for 12 rounds. Margarito was severely battered and referee Laurence Cole should’ve stopped the carnage. Pacquiao could’ve bludgeoned Margarito into submission but held back in the final round, displaying compassion if not pity for the Mexican warrior. Margarito wound up with a fractured orbital bone and may never fight again. Mosley was floored in the third round and refused to mix it up the rest of the way.

Pacquiao shouldn’t be blamed for letting Clottey, Margarito and Mosley off the hook even as critics wondered if he had lost his once-frightening killer’s instinct – the gladiator’s mentality that demolished Lehlo Ledwaba, Marco Antonio Barrera and Ricky Hatton.

No less than Top Rank chairman Bob Arum said when Pacquiao is up against a decisively beaten opponent, he lets up.

“Manny looks for the referee to stop the fight,” said Arum in a STAR interview yesterday. “He doesn’t want to rain more punishment on an opponent who has no chance of winning. That’s just how he is. I think it’s a good thing to be compassionate.”

Arum said Pacquiao’s reluctance to finish off Clottey.

Margarito and Mosley isn’t an indication that he’s lost his killer’s instinct. It’s just that those three fighters were so badly mauled that there was no sense to rub salt on their wounds. As Pacquiao once said, boxing isn’t killing or maiming – it’s a sport, after all, where fighters should show respect for each other.

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The danger of Pacquiao easing up on an opponent unwilling to engage is he courts the fans’ displeasure. That was the case in the Mosley fight which was booed by a sell-out crowd at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas last May.

“Manny Pacquiao is the world’s best fighter but he consistently refuses to go all-out for victory – as was the case against Mosley,” wrote Graham Houston in Boxing Monthly magazine. “Hardly surprising, then, that for the first time in his career, Pacman heard the booing of the crowd. Once again, Pacquiao eased up on an outclassed opponent just as he did in his fights with Clottey and Margarito. He is a powerful, outstandingly good fighter but Pacquiao no longer seems to have the drive or the hunger to go after an opponent in a relentless manner. If Pacquiao is winning and the other man isn’t any kind of a threat to him, then he seems quite content to treat the fight like a sparring session.”

Houston had an interesting theory as to why Pacquiao is no longer as unforgiving as before.

“Maybe, with a high-powered political career in the Philippines in his future, Pacquiao doesn’t want to risk sullying his image by appearing to be a merciless aggressor in the ring,” continued Houston. “Unfortunately, though, fans want to see, in the context of a boxing match, a cruel Pacquiao and not a kindly one.”

But Arum said if Pacquiao is confronted by an unintimidated opponent who will not retreat, the Filipino icon will be back in furious form. Arum said Juan Manuel Marquez is an opponent who won’t run away from Pacquiao and that’s why their third meeting on Nov. 12 is expected to be a humdinger.

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In contrast to Pacquiao’s humane attitude, newly crowned WBC/IBO lightheavyweight titlist Bernard Hopkins, an ageless battler at 46, said there’s no room for compassion in the ring.

“I’m in the fight business,” said Hopkins in the book “Box: The Face of Boxing,” “While the fight’s going on, the fight business is not about, ‘Are you OK? Are you all right? Did I hit you too hard? Oh, I’m sorry I hit you in the ribs.’ It’s legal to hit a guy in the Adam’s apple. A shoulder can be hit. Trust me, whatever limb you give me, I’m punching it. I’m going to fight you for 12 rounds. If you beat me, it won’t be by luck. I’ll do anything to win.”

Pacquiao probably wouldn’t argue Hopkins’ point – if the fight is competitive. As Arum and Houston mentioned, Pacquiao holds his punches only if his opponent is decisively beaten because it makes no human sense to inflict more punishment on a battered fighter.

Boxing legend Roberto Duran also had something to say about unabated violence in the ring. “A fighter needs a mean streak to be successful,” said the Hands of Stone from Panama. “If you’re good, that’s good. But if you’re good and mean, that’s better. In the ring, you need cruelty to be great.”

Pacquiao has proved Duran wrong. He has shown that you can also be compassionate in greatness.