Boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao was courtside for the Knicks game against the Trail Blazers on Wednesday night at the Garden and afterward visited a few players, including Carmelo Anthony, in the locker room. After a brief chat, Anthony autographed his game jersey and gave it to Pacquiao, a huge basketball fan, who sponsors and plays on his own team in the Philippines.
“It was nice of him to do that,” Pacquiao said on Thursday. “I got the game ball, too.”
Pacquiao cared little the mementos came after a disappointing defeat to Portland in which Anthony was a virtual non-factor in the fourth quarter. The three-time fighter of the year knows what it’s like to take a tough loss. Since Pacquiao was knocked out by Juan Manuel Marquez in December 2012, there have been questions about whether he can ever be as dominant as he was in winning world titles in eight different weight classes. Does Pacquiao still have his killer instinct? Is he getting gun-shy? Can he ever be a champion again? Anthony can probably relate.
“I told [Anthony] to just keep punching,” Pacquiao said.
The congressman from the Sarangani Province in the Philippines plans to do plenty of punching April 12 when he faces Timothy Bradley at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The HBO pay-per-view bout will be for the WBO welterweight title Bradley won from Pacquiao in a controversial decision in June 2012 at the same arena.
Many ringside observers felt Pacquiao had done enough to earn the decision, but two of the three judges saw Bradley winning 115-113, while the third judge gave the fight to Pacquiao by the same score. Five months later, in a fourth fight with Marquez, Pacquiao was knocked out cold with one punch in the sixth round.
Winning a 12-round decision over Brandon Rios last November in Macao, China, stopped the losing streak, but didn’t fully prove whether Pacquiao is willing to be the attacking fighter that made him so popular.
“Timothy Bradley says Manny has lost his killer instinct. We’ll see about that,” said Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s longtime trainer.
Pacquiao, who was in Manhattan for a press conference Thursday to promote the bout, is confident that at age 35 he has plenty of fight left in him and wants to settle the score with Bradley.
“Bradley says I don’t have the killer instinct anymore,” Pacquiao told his audience. “Maybe’s he’s right. Maybe I’m just too kind to my opponents in the ring. But I have to get it back this time around and show I have the killer instinct.”
With 38 knockouts among his record of 55-5-2, Pacquiao has always been fierce and aggressive. But even Roach wants to make sure his fighter regains a measure of confidence and aggression.
“We’re going to work on that in the gym by giving him a couple of guys he can knock out,” Roach said, “guys he doesn’t know instead of the guys he’s friends with. When he faces new guys, he has something to prove.”
Bradley (31-0, 12 KOs) didn’t get much notoriety for beating Pacquiao, but has earned respect for subsequent decisions over hard-punching Russian Ruslan Provodnikov and the future Hall of Famer Marquez. But the controversy over the Pacquiao fight and the lack of credit he received still sting.
“I know the first time around nobody believed I won the fight,” Bradley said. “This time I have to make it more decisive. I want to prove a lot of people wrong.”
Bradley said he wasn’t trying to trash-talk by questioning Pacquiao’s killer-instinct.
“The fact I said he’s too compassionate is just how he is. That’s his personality now,” Bradley said. “He wants to get that fire going in this fight and I hope he does.”
If Pacquiao does indeed get his fire back, maybe he can tell Anthony and the Knicks how to do the same.