IT is perhaps in the stubbornness of warriors, rather than their strength, that boxing most frequently proves its cruelty. The punches are brutal, of course, but it is the temptations whispered by memory that do the most enduring damage.
As Manny Pacquiao, a man who once moved like a holy spectre through eight weight divisions, prepares to lace up the gloves again at the age of 46, one is reminded not of his titles or triumphs, but of the countless ring generals who mistook the applause of yesterday for the promise of tomorrow.
There is an intoxicating aroma to past glory, but its scent can deceive like cheap perfume. Pacquiao’s comeback against Mario Barrios, eleven years his junior and the reigning WBC welterweight champion, has been dressed up as another tilt at history.
In truth, it resembles a love letter to denial. This is not the Pacquiao who shredded Hatton with a left hook like a guillotine through linen, nor the one who out-danced De La Hoya into retirement.
This is a man who has spent years in political arenas, not prize rings, and whose last outing against Yordenis Ugas in 2021 left the unmistakable stench of decline.
There is a moment in every fighter’s career when their name becomes bigger than their performances. Pacquiao passed that threshold some time ago. The spirit may still be indomitable, but the legs no longer carry it with the same gospel fervour.
That flurry of movement that once seemed like God had programmed fast-forward into his bones has slowed. The head still bobs, but now it searches more than evades. The punches still come, but where once they arrived in lightning clusters, now they resemble weathered men struggling with luggage on an airport conveyor.
It is no indictment of character to age, only of judgment to ignore it. Pacquiao has lived many lives: dirt-poor street urchin, pay-per-view emperor, senator. But the ring is a place of unforgiving arithmetic.
Time plus trauma equals erosion. The reflexes that once danced him out of danger cannot be summoned by memory alone. No fighter beats time. Hopkins mocked it and Foreman delayed it, but even they paid in bruises what they collected in belts.
And what of Barrios? A fine, if not spectacular, champion, but one with youth on his side and a spiteful body attack. His feet are not nimble enough to chase ghosts, but Pacquiao is no longer the haunting presence of old.
If anything, he now risks becoming the ghost himself. Barrios (above) is unlikely to box with excessive reverence. He will not be moved by legend when he smells the slow breath of an older man.
There is a reason why Sugar Ray Leonard left the ring in tears after Hector Camacho ended his ill-fated comeback. He had chased echoes and found only his own haggard voice.
There is a reason David Haye grimaced through post-fight platitudes after another comeback turned to rubble. The body, like the crowd, stops responding.
Boxing is not a sport that forgives sentiment. The canvas offers no comfort, only reminders. There is something grotesquely voyeuristic about watching once-great men try to retrieve time.
It is not the fights that haunt them; it is the adulation. There are no parades for men who learn to let go. The crowd loves a return because it flatters its own nostalgia. But what they ask for is resurrection, and what they get is often something closer to an exhumation.
Pacquiao does not need money. His political clout and commercial acumen ensure that. He does not need validation; history already bows to his name.
What he seeks, then, must be less tangible: a final chapter written in bold type. But not every story needs a coda. Sometimes the most courageous act is to close the book.
And yet, boxing encourages precisely the opposite. It seduces with promises it rarely keeps. There is a currency in fame and a narcotic quality in relevance.
When the lights have dimmed, and the microphones have been turned off, a fighter remembers only the roar. He forgets the silence between the rounds, the pain of mornings, the fleeting lucidity of thought.
Pacquiao, for all his achievements, is not immune to this. He may wear his faith like armour, but no belief can cushion a liver shot. No sermon can steady ageing legs. And Barrios, a quiet and willing executioner, will not be bound by sentiment.
If Pacquiao is hurt – and hurt he may well be – the cost will not be just a loss. It will be a desecration. There is a terrible finality to watching a legend lose not just a bout but their aura. Ali had Holmes, Leonard had Camacho, Roy Jones had everyone.
It is not that Pacquiao cannot still fight. It is that he cannot still be Pacquiao. The thing we mourn in these comebacks is not a loss on the record, but the death of myth. We watch a man chase his former self, and we bear witness to the inevitable failure of that pursuit.
There is dignity in decline, but only if accepted. The tragic flaw of the greats is often their inability to recognise when the audience is clapping not in excitement, but in farewell. For Pacquiao to step into the ring again is not an act of courage. It is an act of defiance against biology, against fate, against sense.
We should not romanticise it. We should not wrap it in false hope. We should call it what it is: a lament in gloves. A final round against inevitability.
And we should hope, for his sake, that it ends with nothing more than disappointment. Because the alternative is far worse.
