Popular sports magazine and website Sports Illustrated named the exploits of Manny Pacquiao as the biggest boxing story for 2010, a columnist for the online edition posted recently.
“He’s won major sanctioning-body titles in eight different weight classes, nearly half of the sport’s 17 divisions,” wrote Bryan Armen Graham on SI’s Inside Boxing. “He was the subject of a 60 Minutes profile in November, less than 12 months after being named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people.”
Pacquiao fought twice this year, opening up 2010 by dominating Joshua Clottey at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas before annexing the WBC super welterweight crown with a 12-round annihilation of Mexican Antonio Margarito.
The victory over Margarito came almost a year after Pacquiao stopped Miguel Cotto in the 12th round of their WBO welterweight title, giving the Filipino ring icon an unprecedented seventh world title in seven divisions.
And also in the midyear national elections, Pacquiao won a seat in Congress, representing Sarangani province.
“He was elected to Congress in the Philippines in May and named Fighter of the Decade by the Boxing Writers Association of America in June,” wrote Graham. “He won as many fights at Cowboys Stadium (two) as the full-time tenants won football games during the whole 2010 season. He sings, he acts.”
It seems Pacquiao has indeed ran out of things to conquer, so much so that for 2011, with the fight against Floyd Mayweather still unclear, the Pacman will settle for a much-maligned outing against aging Shane Mosley.
Pacquiao’s drawing power also helped boxing return to big-stadium fights, a storyline that also made it to SI’s top boxing stories at No. 3.
“When Pacquiao fought Josh Clottey at Jerry Jones’ $1.3 billion Cowboys Stadium in March, the official attendance was 50,994—greater than any fight in the United States over the past 50 years besides Ali-Spinks II at the Superdome in 1978 (63,350) and Whitaker-Chavez at the Alamodome in 1993 (59,995),” Graham wrote.
This marks the second time the country made it to the yearend list of Sports illustrated.
Earlier, the website ranked the Azkals, the Philippine football team, No. 10 in its list of top football stories for the year.
The national footballers earned the accolade after a surprising run to the semifinals of the AFF Suzuki Cup, which included a 2-0 victory over defending champion Vietnam. The Azkals lost to Indonesia in the semifinals, but not after a strong stand against the regional heavyweight.
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