Prior to his US debut where he fought and destroyed Ledwaba, he was the WBC and lineal fly-weight world champion. Hardly a complete unknown entity. Yet not only was Jim Lampley unable to pronounce his name such was his vagueness on who the Filipino was, Larry Merchant had also never heard of him. Roman Gonzales is well known among boxing fans, so how did no-one see Pacquiao coming?
Lower weights, asian and crude. It seems like he is just a typical champion who hailed from asia back then. But he was pretty big in the philippines already. He is almost as famous as luisito espinosa back then.
If he was chinese, everybody would have known him. But he was philipino, a country wich isn't cosidered about boxing, and without the hype and political power of china.
The power of the internet. If we want to see Roman Gonzalez now (or Naoya Inoue to perhaps give another example) when can just whack their names in to youtube and viola! Back in 2001 (Pacquiao's US debut) there was no youtube, there wasn't live streams of fights from Thailand (where Pacquiao won his first world title) the websites we use to keep tabs on a lot of those asian fighters weren't running either [dates relate to the registration for the sites]- Philboxing [2005] Thairec [2008] asianboxing [2013] tko.in.th [2014] asianfightscene [2014] Amazing to think how much the internet has helped us follow more obscure fighters in recent years.
False. I was stationed in the PI after his US debut and no one knew him. I mentioned Pacquiao to the Filipinos and all they knew was Gerry Penalosa. He became huge after the Barrera fight. TMT = The Manny Team!!! War Manny!!!
WTF? He was already headlining a card in Araneta Coliseum back then. He's not a household name yet but he was pretty well known among the sporting enthusiast back then.
Somewhere in the middle. Not yet a household name but people can immediately remember his unique sounding name from the sasakul, singsurat and the mira fights. He's regularly co-headlining espinosa's cards and people knew that he is a very exciting fighter to watch.
dont get me wrong , i am rooting for Pac all the way and I am American. I clearly remember my time in the PI, I loved it and was trying to spread Pacquiaos name around.
he was only known to boxing fans then unlike now that the whole country knows boxing when the international media covered him after the barrera win. blow by blow was only popular to boxing fans.
Guys like Mab, morales, hamed, pac brought recognition to these small weights. That's why people and average boxing fans now pay attention to Gonzales, arce, donaire, rigo
Just how did Manny Pacquiao fly so low under the radar? Years of experience on how to dodge the ped tests:yep
