I don't have a better video yet -- so just close your eyes.(All the better to appreciate Charice's version of this Celine Dion hit song.)
Somehow though, while her singing is, as always, great -- I can't help feeling that this is no big deal.
Yes, she's the only Filipino to make it onto a current hit TV show ever (correct me if I'm wrong).
Yes, she's probably the biggest news coming out of the Philippines after Manny Pacquiao.
But really, "All by Myself" is the kind of song that EVERY Filipina diva sings. For us Filipinos, that song is normal. Heck, that kind of belting is normal too. Just watch any singing contest whether it's on TV or in a Sunday fiesta in the boondocks and you'll see what I mean.
This is not to put Charice down but rather to emphasize that there is no dearth of singing talent in this country. We have many more like her waiting to be discovered, polished and projected onto the world stage, if only we had enough Oprahs and Ellens to thrust them to.
For now though, we have but one: Charice Pempengco. Great work, Charice! You make us proud. May we have many more like you.
Pacquiao SCARED of Mayweather? Get things straight in your head, man: Pacquiao already agreed to your random drug tests. Who didn't come to the bargaining table? Your son!
Check out this excerpt from an interview done by EastSideBoxing -- you can get the whole interview over there:
JENNA: Now Floyd, taking things back to your son and his potential fight with Pacquiao. If you could speak to Pacquiao right now face to face what would you say to him?
MAYWEATHER: I’d tell him he’s a fagg*t. You know what I’d tell him. Go stick your head up under your dress. That’s what I would tell him. I’m being real with you. I’d tell him he ain’t nothing but a sissy and a little girl. They got, as a matter of fact I’ve seen a thing in one of these books. Hold on just a second. Hey Lloyd! Where’s that book at about all of those athletes? That book about all of the athletes? You know the one, it had Pacquiao in there and Kobe in there? Well you know what, I’ll tell you just like the book says it. Hold on one second here. Here it is right here, here’s the book. It has nothing to do with no sissy. Just hold on just a second. I got something right here. I’m trying to find something right here. This is exactly what I would tell him. It’s in this book here. It’s “The Twenty Biggest Bitches in the Sport”. That’s what it says, “The Twenty Biggest Bitches in the Sport”. Guess who’s right here? Manny Pacquiao. It says “Biggest Bitches in the Sport” and that’s what he is, a bitch.
JENNA: So basically you’re questioning his manhood a little bit for not immediately taking a match with Floyd Mayweather Junior?
MAYWEATHER: Let me tell you something. What I’m saying here is not so much about that. Yeah, it would be that because of all these other guys. He ain’t got no problem with fighting all the big guys—De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton, the other African guy, the other guy who he fought with the title. I’m just saying he beat these guys, Cotto, he beat all these guys like they’re nothing. Pacquiao’s one of the biggest fagg*ts on the planet.
JENNA: So you think he’s afraid to fight your son?
MAYWEATHER: Yeah, he’s scared. The only thing they’re trying to do is to switch this around and make it look like it’s my son that’s scared. He ain’t the one that’s scared. I know who’s scared for real. They want to try and make it look like Floyd is scared, and he wants to do this, and make him take the test. No. You take the test. There ain’t nothing wrong with you taking the test. You take the test but one thing about it, don’t ask for the same amount of money because you don’t deserve it. You don’t deserve it.
You want to be a legend, Floyd? Fight Pacquiao. Until you do, you will never be considered one of the Greats.
Unless you want to be remembered for being a Great Escape Artist. Oh yeah, you already own that title. Take a break then, two years, twenty if you want. No one will ever be able to take that title away from you anyway.
With the superfight, in essence, all but a done deal except for some 'minor' issues to be ironed out by Bob Arum and Floyd Mayweather Jr., the all-important question is not "Who will win?" or "Will it be an exciting fight?"
Who wins will depend on how Mayweather decides to fight the Pacman. If Mayweather runs from the start and continues to the end, he has a good chance of winning. If he decides to engage in the beginning, before he does any running, Manny Pacquiao has a shot. Look at how Cotto struggled to stay alive once he had gotten a taste of Pacquiao's firepower.
Either way, it promises to be an interesting show, just from the possibility of having Pacquiao chase Mayweather and tag him with a couple of blows. It probably won't have a lot of fireworks, but I'm sure we'll see enough. Trust Freddie Roach, "Master" Roach, to have figured this one out.
At this point, the world just wants to see the guy with the big mouth go up against the guy with the big heart. And if Pacquiao wins, well that would be a fitting cap to a stellar career. If he loses, and we hope he won't, it would have been a great fight anyway.
The big unanswered question is this: what happens now to Pacquiao's run for the congressional seat in Saranggani?
Floyd Mayweather Jr. gets defensive. Watch the video to hear the lame-o excuses.
He's trying to make it look like the Pacman's avoiding him ... forgetting that Freddie Roach called him out right after the fight.
Plus he's trying to explain why even if he wins, he still loses against the Pacman. Or maybe he's justifying why he doesn't want to fight Pacquiao.
(Pacman has always allowed his promoters and team members to be the ones to iron out who he fights and at what terms. He's not afraid of you, Floyd. He's just being true to form.)
And speaking of being true to form: weren't you the one making noises about wanting a 65-35 split of the purse if you went up against Pacquiao -- supposedly because you're a bigger crowd drawer? Well, not anymore, huh? Now you have to scramble to come up with silly excuses like these to avoid facing your first ever loss.
If you're really that good, Floyd, you could beat Manny Pacquiao EVEN IF the price wasn't right. Agree to a 50 - 50 split and we'll see if you really are the best boxer in the world and the pound for pound king -- see, the only one who thinks and says that it's you is , well, you.
Manny Pacquiao doesn't need to prove anything anymore -- he could hang up his gloves and say goodbye, and he'd still have achieved something much bigger than you could ever do.
And that's not just about achieving titles in seven weight classes. He brought boxing back from the dead. He made boxing worth watching again. Whereas you... you turned it into a snoozefest. You bring boring to the table and who wants to watch that?
---
EDIT:
Here's the transcript just in case the video gets removed:
"The thing is with Pacquiao I don't see any versatility as a fighter; he's a good puncher but just one-dimensional."
"When they asked Manny Pacquiao 'would you like to fight Floyd Mayweather' he said talk to my promoter; they didn't ask your promoter they asked you, what do you want to do? Manny Pacquiao was asked the same question 'do you want to fight Floyd Mayweather' three times. This is something the world is trying to force on him. If he wants to fight Floyd Mayweather all he has to do is step up to the plate."
"I'm in a no-win situation. If I beat Manny Pacquiao, do you know what they are going to say? 'You are supposed to beat him, you are Floyd Mayweather, you are the bigger man'. If I knock him out they'll say 'you're supposed to knock him out he's been knocked out before'."
"I'm in a no-win situation and when I beat him no one is going to be surprised because he's been beaten before; whatever I do to Pacquiao has been done before - he's been beaten on three occasions. And if I knock him out I don't want the world shouting because he's been knocked out twice before."
"If I go out and make $60-75 million in one night; come on - I'm not losing. Can Manny Pacquiao beat me? Absolutely not."
"The world's going to go 'wow' if Floyd Mayweather gets beaten. That's what everyone is looking to see. What's going on now at the world of boxing is they're trying to build a fighter, make a fighter that can beat me."
"I don't get no respect in the world of boxing. I do my interviews, you got different fighters that disrespect me, and come in on my interviews, which is not fair. Now Manny Pacquiao when he does his interviews, he can do his interviews for 20 minutes, then they go interview his trainers, and the rest of the people in his team. Now, with me, they interview me, they got guys jumping in, being very disrespectful."
"I'm not saying Cotto is not a good fighter, flat-footed, been in a lot of wars. There's nothing cool about taking punishment. 'Oh, I beat this guy up he beat me up. I got a swell eye, a rip lip, bloody nose, a broken rib, made a few million, and my hand got raised.' There's nothing cool about taking punishment."
"Floyd Mayweather beat 13 world champions, 6 time world champion, in 5 different weight classes, and won official belts. I beat fighters at official classes, and I move up to 130. No different than Manny Pacquiao. Manny Pacquiao weigh 106 when he was 16, just like Floyd Mayweather."
"My career is fine, what's so cool is I can take no punishment, no bumps, no bruises. When my career is over I have a job as a commentator, and I will be a great promoter. That's the great thing about my career, I can't speak for other fighter."
-- this is actually a better video since it's more complete and shows more of Mayweather's side than the previous one I posted. Nevertheless, I stand by what I said in the post.
It took twelve rounds with the Pacman dominating from the second round onwards. It may not have been as one-sided as the demolitions of Hatton or De la Hoya or Diaz or Morales but this was still a largely Pacquiao show. Cotto and his camp (as well as Mayweather, incidentally) said that the Pacman had faced washed-out, over-the-hill, aging fighters in De la Hoya and Morales as well as second-rate pugilists in Diaz and Hatton, ergo he would finally meet his match in Cotto: a true welterweight, in his prime. Miguel Cotto, they said, would be the real measure of whether Pacquiao deserved his pound for pound king reputation.
Well, what can we say really except this: well, guys, now you know.
Congratulations, Manny Pacquiao.
Now, as for you Mr. Mayweather... you better get your begging bowl ready because if you want a shot at the Pacman, you better shut up, beg, and take whatever deal you can get. Fifty-fifty sounds real generous actually, being that Manny has just cemented his reputation as one of the biggest and most exciting fighters in the sport -- while you only have a reputation for being a loudmouth who's all about the money and avoiding a real punch-up. Otherwise, we'll all be left thinking that you're just afraid of getting hammered and looking like Cotto by round 12.
As the ex-pound for pound king, it should be about facing the Manny, and not the money.
Check out this new video by Christine. Even she's gotten the Pac Man fever... not hard to catch if you're a Pinoy or any other nationality for that matter.
It's pretty hard not to catch it if you're a red-blooded human being who's always needed to have someone who can show you that even you can rise up from anonymity and be on top of the world if you work hard enough for it. He shows all of us that it is possible to achieve your dreams.
Manny Pacquiao's stock shot up yet another notch today as he disposed of Ricky Hatton earlier than anyone ever predicted. Most of the analysts said he'd do it within 8 rounds. Even his trainer, Freddie Roach, no slouch himself in the predictions department was off as Pacquiao did it in two rounds.
This time, no one will question Pacquiao's real ability as a fighter. No one can say that Hatton was a washed-up, past-his-prime fighter. This was no Oscar de la Hoya whose Golden Age had already passed. This was a Hatton still in-peak form: agile, hungry and deadly.
You could still say that after watching these clips courtesy of some ever-helpful Youtubers :
Full fight
another set: Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Hatton met his match. Scratch that. Pacquiao was more than that. Hatton was completely out-matched.
Five predictions:
1. Ricky Hatton will come to the Philippines to shoot a commercial for San Miguel Beer with Manny Pacquiao. (He's a Brit. He loves beer. He seems like a nice guy. So why not, right?)
2. The Brits will want a rematch. Maybe by end of the year. Why not? Their boy never really got a chance to show his skills, never mind that that's because he got thoroughly whipped.Pacquiao will beat him again, after which Hatton will retire.
3. Floyd Mayweather Jr will come out from retirement and challenge Manny. Sounds good to me. Manny will beat Mayweather. Mayweather will retire for good.
4. Pacquiao will retire after he disposes of Mayweather and after he demolishes Hatton again for their rematch. Who is else is left for the Pacman anyway?
5. Pacquiao will run for Congress again. He will lose. He will then enter showbiz as a comedian cum singer. He will be more successful in this second career. He will never try politics again.
