Tom Bradley Los Angeles International Airport:- The sleek Philippine Airlines flight direct from Manila bearing the “World’s Best Pound4Pound Boxer” and the current WBO Welterweight champion, Manny Pacquiao, touched down at this airport a lot earlier than expected.And, they said, PAL meant “Plane Always Late”.
A few moments later, Pacquiao followed by his entourage came out of the immigration and customs area to the arrival lobby sporting a huge smile.
Present to welcome the champion was a large crowd of “Pac-nuts” that quickly overshadowed the media people there to cover the arrival of the Filipino spitfire.
I guess Top Rank’s blog on the Internet announcing the day and exact time of arrival of Pacquiao did work very well. Too well, in fact!
I witnessed and covered several of Pacquiao’s arrival at Los Angeles when he comes to fight in this country. I must say that the crowd that welcomed Pacquiao tonight was one the biggest.
I could only imagine how many more would have come if it was not raining that hard. The crowd was huge and it was a mixed bag of people. Everyone seemed to be there.
But as always, the Pacquiao people in LA handled the situation so well (they are used to it by now, I guess) that Pacquiao was in his SUV and out of the place in a jiffy. Of course a whole lot of credit must be given to Los Angeles’ Finest who controlled the situation as well. Well done and thank you, LAPD!
Pacquiao is in town early to honor his commitment to attend press tours at Dallas, Texas and New York City to announce his fight with Joshua Clottey of Ghana at the sparkling Cowboys Stadium at Arlington, Texas on March 13th. Then if things all work out as planned, he begins training at the Wildcard Gym as soon as they come back from the press conference.
What was so interesting to note was no matter how much effort Team Mayweather tried to put down Manny Pacquiao and destroy his reputation and popularity, nothing worked.
Pacquiao in fact got more popular and his allure to his fans increased exponentially. That was vividly manifested by the very large adoring crowd that met him at LAX tonight.
Mayweather Junior I am sure will never be able generate such a crowd even if he starts throwing money in their faces like he allegedly used to do.
For all we know because of the negative impact generated by Team Mayweather via the stupid and unusual demands they made as a condition to fight Pacquiao, less fans will now be swayed towards anything Mayweather Junior will do. Some even branded him as “coward”.
As one fan stated: “No mo’ Pretty Boy. His self-proclaimed magic is down the pig pen.”
But with his huge ego, I am sure given a chance, Junior will try very hard to outdo Pacquiao.
Thus I say, go ahead Junior, let’s see what you have left.
But I must warn you, your chances of getting close to what Pacquiao can do or has done, will be far flung. It’s an absolute no-contest!
From now on you will always be the second fiddle. And, that is being generous.
Pity.
But then again, deserve it as you did it to yourself!
Top photo: Filipino superstar Manny Pacquiao (right with hat) is welcomed by throng of fans at the Tom Bradley International Airport in Los Angeles upon his arrival Sunday afternoon. Photo by Dr. Ed de la Vega.
Source: philboxing.com
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