It should have been so easy for Manny Pacquiao to ride off into the sunset, white hat perched proudly on his head. Perfectly positioned as a force of good against Floyd Mayweather's irredeemable evil, Pacquiao mostly just needed to keep his mouth shut and fans would have forgotten his philandering, his tax problems and his ties to cockfighting.
But Pacquiao, who claims he will retire after fighting Tim Bradley on April 9, wasn't content to leave quietly. The 37-year-old Filipino boxer, who is running for a seat in the country's senate, provoked outrage earlier this week on Filipino station TV5 (h/t CNN) when he said, "The animals are better. They know how to distinguish male from female. If we approve male on male, female on female, then man is worse than animals."
Pacquiao, simply put, is on the wrong side of American history. In the last 14 years, according to polling by the Pew Research Center:
Support for same-sex marriage has steadily grown. Based on polling in 2015, a majority of Americans (55%) support same-sex marriage, compared with 39% who oppose it.
This is due in part to generational change. Younger generations express higher levels of support for same-sex marriage. However, older generations also have become more supportive of same-sex marriage in recent years.
The resulting outcry cost the legendary boxer an endorsement deal with Nike and even prompted his own promoter to speak out to TMZ Sports against him. Pacquiao, of course, is free to express his views, no matter how abhorrent. As USA Today's Luke Kerr-Dineen explains, that's among the many benefits of living in a free society:
Manny Pacquiao, a deeply religious man with strong convictions, is entitled to think whatever he wants. And whether you like to hear it or not, he's entitled to say whatever he thinks. It doesn't matter that his athletic talent has given him a louder microphone than everyone else. Such is the beauty of living in a free country.
Nike, for its part, is allowed to make value judgments based on those views. Some may argue that personal views shouldn't intrude on business relationships, and they usually don't. But when an athlete like Pacquiao decides to thrust polarizing opinions into the public sphere, it presents a new set of circumstances.
Pacquiao's comments also further cemented boxing, a sport that research shows attracts an audience that is predominately over 35, as your father's sport, an anachronism with no place in a world split between mixed martial arts fans and those sensitive souls who decry football as too violent.
Worse still, for boxing fans? The sport we love continues to slip further and further into the niche and away from the American mainstream.
Boxing is in a precarious position. As Pacquiao and Mayweather fade into memory, their legacies as a domestic abuser and homophobe secure, the sport is left without a signature star who commands attention from the general sports world.
| Pacquiao's Unprecedented Championship Legacy | ||
| Flyweight | Chatchai Sasakul | 12/4/98 |
| Super Bantamweight | Lehlo Ledwaba | 6/23/01 |
| Featherweight | Marco Antonio Barrera | 11/15/03 |
| Super Featherweight | Juan Manuel Marquez | 3/15/08 |
| Lightweight | David Diaz | 6/28/08 |
| Light Welterweight | Ricky Hatton | 5/2/09 |
| Welterweight | Miguel Cotto | 11/14/09 |
| Light Middleweight | Antonio Margarito | 11/13/2010 |
| boxrec.com | ||
Canelo Alvarez lacks the marquee wins to succeed his predecessors, and Gennady Golovkin failed his first real box-office test last year when his first pay-per-view bout didn't attract the audience he expected.
New heavyweight champion Tyson Fury has his own problems with homophobia and did little to thrill fans in a relatively dull win over Wladimir Klitschko.
For years, boxing was a relatively progressive sport. Joe Louis was the biggest star in athletics, called a "credit to his race, the human race" before Jackie Robinson ever stepped foot on a Major League Baseball diamond. Muhammad Ali was a worldwide symbol in the fight for racial equality and justice.
That's where boxing needs to be if it hopes to have a place at the table in the ever-changing sports landscape. Advertisers and television networks have more options than ever. Boxing has to present itself as a forward-looking sport, a sport with a future and not just a glorious past.
Otherwise, the sweet science is as doomed as Pacquiao's primitive viewpoint.
Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.
