As I write this, I take a sip from an old black 16-oz. plastic tumbler, my favorite drinking vessel. On the side of the tumbler is a faded graphic of “The Battle,” the not-too-imposing title of the fight card, above portraits of the fight’s combatants: Manny Pacquiao and Erik Morales. Needless to say, the title of the second fight between the two men, which Pacquiao won with a 10th round knockout in what remains to be one of the most exciting wins of his career, did not do the match any justice.
That was the first time my buddies and I trooped to the mall to pay our good, hard-earned money to watch a Pacquiao fight live in a theater. We were already in high spirits, all six of us, heading into the mall, and we were loud and boisterous from the onset of the card. We made fun of the Pacquiao CDs being sold outside the theater, and we joked about how Pacquiao ought to enter the ring to his awful debut single “Para Sa ‘Yo Ang Laban Na ‘To” (he later did, to a remixed version of the song).
We sat through the undercards providing our own, loud commentary while making fun of Quinito Henson, just pausing to join along the rest of the full house to cheer whenever Pacquiao’s image was shown on the screen, as early as three hours before the fight. We broke out into roars after the Philippine national anthem was played, even though Jennifer Bautista didn’t sing it all that well, and had a chuckle when Jon Secada proceeded to do the Mexican national anthem, half-expecting him to belt “Just Another Day Without You” instead.
By the time the action picked up in the seventh round, when Pacquiao had Morales on the ropes, it was so loud in the theaters that no one could hear the announcers anymore. Everyone was screaming and high-fiving everyone else, and when the bell rang, the theater crowd needed the respite from the action almost as much as the fighters did.
The biggest cheers, of course, came when Pacquiao finally knocked out Morales out in the tenth round, vanquishing his conqueror and avenging his only official loss this decade. But my friends and I cheered almost as loud after the post-fight interview between Pacquiao and Mario Lopez (Slater from Saved by the Bell):
Slater: “So Manny, what was the difference between this and the first fight.”
Manny, thinking about the question for a moment: “In this fight, I knock him out in the 10th round and I win…”
We went out for lunch, wolfed down pizzas, and even had a couple of pitchers of beers afterwards. It was still early in the afternoon, so we headed to a coffee place for the next couple of hours to take the buzz off, and to talk about every detail of the fight we’d just witnessed.
It’s been a rotating cast of members, but basically, we’ve seen every Pacquiao fight in the theaters together since that afternoon. It’s always a recipe for fun; there’s always that same nervous energy in the movie house right before the fight and we always make the same corny jokes to take the edge off (“Uy, talo daw si Pacquiao ah… si Bobby Pacquiao”).
We’re always loud and profane while trying to make ourselves enjoy the usually boring undercards, and we always get a chill out of singing along to the Philippine national anthem. We always go ape-shit as Manny Pacquiao does his thing, and we always hoot and holler when he battles a seemingly more formidable foe during the post-fight interview. We always go out and eat too much greasy food afterwards, usually while raving about the Pac-man in between chews.
I’m already excited about Pacquiao’s bout against Miguel Cotto this Sunday morning, almost as much for our pilgrimage as the big fight itself.
