Even high above the Philippine capital, the excitement surrounding the impending fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather is palpable. “Pacquiao has got to win. Mayweather has never been challenged like this before. He only fights for the purse, against people he knows he’ll knock down,” the man several rows to my rear explains to a fellow passenger. As the flight from Hong Kong descends into Manila International airport, I’ve only just started to get a feel for the electricity pulsing throughout this city of two million as the biggest sporting event in Philippine history draws near.
“Everybody is excited, even my two daughters. Very excited,” the taxi driver says on the ride to my hotel. “You see this traffic? None of this will be here; 99% of the Philippines will be watching.”
And that is not a minor point given the gridlock we’ve been sitting in for an hour. “No crime, no cars on the street,” he continues. “Everyone will be too busy watching Pacquiao. Police will watch too, they too will be busy. No crime and no police during the fight.”
The prevailing question here throughout fight week is not whether you will be watching Pacquiao’s long-awaited showdown with Mayweather but where you will be watching it. While the bout will be simultaneously broadcast here early morning on free-to-air and cable television, only one Filipino I spoke to plans to watch it at home.
“Whoever has the biggest screen, that’s where we’ll watch it,” a hotel porter says. “My mom will cook some nilagang baboy and we will sit around with popcorn and place bets with each other.”
Who is his money on?
“As a Filipino I have to say Pacquiao. His strategy and moves are better than Mayweather. He is stronger too.”
The majority of the Filipino people will be watching at public screenings, seemingly as a matter of national pride. One person I spoke with said everyone he knows will be at the Coliseum. That is, of course, Smart Araneta Coliseum, best known as the venue that hosted Ali-Frazier III in 1975. Forty years on, the 18,000-seat arena is billing the impending showdown between Pacquiao and Mayweather as Thrilla in Manila II and will project the fight on an 800ft JumboTron.
The fight will also have every hotel, resort, casino and mall clamouring to capitalise on the occasion. Restaurants have targeted tourists with free-flowing champagne and gourmet buffet-style brunch specials, while SM Cinemas, one of the largest cinema chains in the Philippines, will be simulcasting the fight in Imax theatres nationwide. Packaged along with the broadcast will also be a pre-fight documentary focused on Pacquiao’s training for the Mayweather fight, a behind-the-scenes featurette on the making of Kid Kulafu (a Pacquiao biopic, released last month) and Pacquiao: The Movie (another Pacquiao biopic, released in 2006).
Television commercials promoting what has been called the Fight of the Century play on a loop every two minutes on the internal hotel TV channel. The small province of Sarangani, Pacquiao’s home town, which he now represents as a congressman, will be preparing a grand showing at the town hall. Another taxi driver said he plans to watch it with his friends and family at one of the public viewings, either at the civic centre or one of the 15 other venues where it will be screened free of charge. “I don’t have a TV,” he says, “but I still want to watch the fight.”
All three major TV networks – ABS-CBN, TV5 and GMA – have been running incessant man-on-the-street interviews on repeat with Filipino after Filipino swearing allegiance to the Pambansang Kamao (National Fist). “Mayweather may think he is unbeatable,” one pedestrian opines, “but he is not untouchable. He won’t be able to knock Pacquiao down.” Switching the channels in either direction you’ll come across Filipino language stations asking the provincial governor’s prediction of the fight or the History Channel replaying the greatest hits of Pacquiao’s career in dramatic fashion. All other news stories have been hopelessly obscured.
The markets here are lined, stall to stall, with fresh fish hanging from hooks, vendors hawking dried mangoes and young women fanning coals to cook their pork skewers. Hand-painted signs for a local amateur boxing tournament hang next to glossy posters of Pacquiao smiling for the camera. A few stalls down, a church poster is taped over a soda billboard, offering simple prayers for Pacquiao’s safety and success nestled in between announcements for their pot-luck dinner and forthcoming Catholic holidays. Feral dogs dot in and out of vacant lots and young men idle lazily on the back of parked motorcycles smoking cigarettes and texting each other, placing their bets.
Later that night, deep within the city centre after the squelching tropical heat has subsided into a muggy night-time, a different perspective from a bartender over a couple of cold drafts of beer. Like everyone else, his money is on his countryman but he can see it beyond the terms of a mere record-shattering sporting event. “Mayweather is like Goliath and Pacquiao is David,” he reasons. “Filipinos are so poor. We work very hard. Mayweather is only about his money and his image, he does not care about his people. He is a dirty fighter. Pacquiao he is one of us, he is Filipino. That is why I root for him.”
