By Miguel Alejandro Lopez: Many boxing fans in America and Europe are not aware that it was a fellow Filipino who first registered a one-punch KO loss for Manny Pacquiao. This happened in 1996, long before Pacquiao and Marquez fought for the first time. The name of the man who KO’ed the then undefeated Pacquiao was Rustico Torrecampo from the Philippines.
Manny Pacquiao, who had a record of 11-0 at that time, was confidently attacking Torrecampo (a much older fighter), when he suddenly got caught with a sharp counterpunch that landed straight on the chin and ended somewhere near the abdominal area. The Pacman did not get up to beat the bell, and suffered a humiliating defeat.
Today, Torrecampo is forgotten. 14 years after his shocking victory over the teenager Pacquiao (around 3 years ago), Rustico staged a comeback fight against another unknown opponent in a non-PPV fight. Pacquiao’s tormentor won his comeback fight, but went on record to say this: “I know I’ll never be like Manny but I want to keep fighting. I want to go as far as I can.”
Meanwhile, after his loss to Torremcapo, Pacquiao went on to conquer eight boxing divisions, defeating well known boxers and bigger, stronger competition.
The nugget of wisdom that Pacquiao can extract from his past is this: sometimes, redemption cannot be obtained by revenge or by a rematch. It is interesting to note that Manny never opted to fight Torrecampo again. Instead, Manny gave his conqueror due credit and moved on from there, taking his fight somewhere else and fulfilling his dream bouts with Barrera and Morales.
Had he insisted on fighting Torrecampo over and over again, we may never have seen Pacquiao become the fighter that he became when he fought the likes of Diaz, Hatton, De la Hoya, Mosley and Cotto.
The best path towards redemption is to simply move on and fight someone else. Marquez is already an aged fighter and he may retire after the Bradley fight. Instead of accepting a reported $13 million offer from Pacquiao plus a share of PPV revenue, Marquez declined — which shows that he feels there is a giant risk of losing if he fights Pacquiao again. Manny should just shrug this off and focus on whoever is the strongest competition that is available for him and who agrees to fight in the ring with fair demands.
Long after the dust settles, no one can take away what Manny Pacquiao has accomplished in the boxing ring – 11 championships in 8 weight classes. Marquez is a hell of a fighter as well, but with the current state of affairs, it is possible that history will forget him sooner than Manny Pacquiao.
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