Manny Pacquiao

Manny Pacquiao (born December 17, 1978, Kibawe, Bukidnon province, Mindanao, Philippines) professional boxer, media celebrity, and politician who became world-famous for winning boxing titles in more weight classes than any other boxer in history. His rise from abject poverty to the pinnacle of his sport was made even more remarkable by his life outside the ring. The charismatic “Pac-Man” was an idol and a unifying force in the Philippines, where his unprecedented popularity led to commercial endorsements, movies, television shows, CDs, and his image on a postage stamp.

(Read Gene Tunney’s 1929 Britannica essay on boxing.) 

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Pacquiao left home as a teenager and stowed away on a ship bound for Manila, where he became a boxer. He made his professional debut as a junior flyweight on January 22, 1995, at the age of 16. Many of his early bouts were televised on a program called Blow by Blow, where his all-action style and boyish smile quickly made him a favourite with Filipino boxing fans. He won his first major title on December 4, 1998, knocking out Thailand’s Chatchai Sasakul to capture the World Boxing Council (WBC) flyweight title. After failing to make weight, however, he lost the title to Medgoen Singsurat of Thailand in September 1999. Pacquiao moved up in weight class, and on June 23, 2001, in his first fight in the United States, he scored a sixth-round knockout of Lehlo Ledwaba to win the International Boxing Federation (IBF) junior featherweight title. Following four successful defenses, he knocked out Mexico’s Marco Antonio Barrera on November 15, 2003, to become The Ring magazine featherweight champion.

Over the next several years, Pacquiao engaged in a series of high-profile fights, winning the World Boxing Association (WBA) and IBF featherweight titles, the WBC and The Ring’s junior lightweight titles, and the WBC lightweight title. His rise was aided by American trainer Freddie Roach, who gradually transformed the left-handed slugger into a multifaceted boxer without detracting from his natural aggression or punching power. He was the Boxing Writers Association of America and The Ring’s Fighter of the Year in 2006 and 2008.

On December 6, 2008, Pacquiao faced and thrashed American boxing star Oscar De La Hoya in a celebrated nontitle welterweight bout in Las Vegas. By then Pacquiao had become a complete fighter, combining excellent footwork, blazing speed, and a vastly improved defense, and he was widely considered, pound for pound, the world’s finest boxer. In addition, Pacquiao’s popularity as a pay-per-view (PPV) boxing attraction had increased steadily since 2002, but the match with De La Hoya was his breakthrough as a global phenomenon. The fight sold approximately 1.25 million buys, generating roughly $70 million in PPV revenue, one of the largest PPV grosses in history for a nonheavyweight bout.

On May 2, 2009, Pacquiao won The Ring’s junior welterweight championship (his sixth weight class as a champion and his ninth as a professional boxer) with a spectacular one-punch second-round knockout of England’s Ricky Hatton. On November 14 he added another championship belt—in a record seventh weight class—when he defeated Miguel Cotto of Puerto Rico in 12 rounds to take the World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight title. Pacquiao defended that title on March 13, 2010, in Arlington, Texas, by defeating Ghanaian boxer Joshua Clottey in 12 rounds. He increased his weight-class titles record to eight when, on November 13, 2010, he soundly defeated WBC super welterweight champion Antonio Margarito, who outweighed Pacquiao by 17 pounds at the time of the fight.

Pacquiao had a 15-bout winning streak that came to an abrupt end in June 2012 when he lost his WBO welterweight title to Timothy Bradley in a controversial split decision. In December 2012 he lost a non-title bout to Juan Manuel Márquez—against whom Pacquiao had previously won two fights and drawn another—when he was knocked out in the sixth round. It was the first time Pacquiao had been knocked out since Singsurat did so in 1999. He regained the WBO welterweight belt in April 2014 by beating Bradley in a unanimous decision. Pacquiao’s next major bout was against the undefeated Floyd Mayweather in May 2015, a much-anticipated contest that the two fighters’ camps had been negotiating on and off for more than six years. In that event, Pacquiao was unable to mount an effective offense against Mayweather, who was arguably the greatest defensive fighter of his generation, and he lost by unanimous decision.

After having won a decision over Bradley on April 9, 2016, Pacquiao retired from boxing for four months before announcing another fight. On July 2, 2017, he lost a decision and the WBO welterweight title to Australia’s Jeff Horn. Pacquiao bounced back to capture the WBA welterweight title in a victory over Lucas Matthysse on July 15, 2018. On July 20, 2019, he won a split decision over the previously undefeated Keith Thurman to take the WBA super welterweight belt and become, at 40 years old, the oldest welterweight champion in boxing history. However, due to inactivity, in 2021 Pacquaio was stripped of the belt, which was then given to Yordenis Ugás of Cuba. Later that year he fought Ugás and lost by unanimous decision. Pacquiao subsequently announced his retirement from boxing with a career record of 62 wins, 8 losses, and 2 draws.

In 2003 Pacquiao was voted Person of the Year in the Philippines over Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who was then two years into her term as president of the country. Four years later, in 2007, he unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the national legislature. He then returned to boxing full-time, but a few days after his November 2009 bout he formed a new “local” political party, the Peoples’ Champ Movement, back in the Philippines. He again declared his candidacy for a legislative seat, for a district in Mindanao, and, on May 10, 2010, he won by an overwhelming margin. He was reelected to the post in 2013. On May 9, 2016, Pacquiao was one of 12 new senators elected to the Philippine Senate. In 2021 he announced his candidacy in the presidential election, which was held the following year. Pacquiao conceded after finishing a distant third behind the landslide victor, Ferdinand (“Bongbong”) Marcos, Jr., and second-place Leni Robredo. Also in 2022 Pacquiao’s term in the Senate ended.