Manny Pacquiao Didn’t Let Fans Down, Prodded by Media Fans Deluded Themselves

I empathize with boxing legend Manny Pacquiao for undeservingly feeling “guilty” over public pressures, following his stunning KO loss which he suffered from older Juan Manuel Marquez, a few days.

From MSN News

"The low morale, the sadness, I accept that. This is my job.... But the reaction of the Filipinos, the many who cried, especially my family, it really hurts me," he said in an interview on the GMA network.

The former eight-division world champion wiped tears from his eyes listening to his wife, Jinkee, make a tearful appeal on camera for her husband, who turns 34 next week, to hang up his gloves. 

Pacquio shouldn’t be so hard on himself. He lost because he is just human. 

A random one-punch shot, in a round which he so-dominated, at the last two seconds virtually changed the outcome to his opponents favor.

Nassim Taleb would have called this Pacquiao’s black swan.

Failure to adhere to reality has made Pacquiao’s loss unwarrantedly controversial. This is hardly about the lack of conditioned training, the charge on Marquez’s alleged use of steroids, and other rubbish attributions. Religion has even been absurdly imputed on this. Others have used this as pretext to try to impose political correctness on the contrasting opinion of the others.

He lost because he lost. He was at wrong place at the wrong time. Period. The rest of supposed 'expert' rationalization represents post hoc fallacy.

It has been my impression that the media has made the public believe that sheer nationalism or the force of nationalism by itself would lead to Pacquiao’s sustained invincibility, immortality and everlasting string of victories. 

Pacquiao’s decisive loss exposed such hogwash. In the same way, belief in extreme nationalism has been demolished after 60-78 MILLION lives had needlessly been lost due to World War II.

Pacquiao didn’t let his fans down. The fans have no one else to blame but themselves, for unduly placing extremely high expectations in his supposed ‘superhuman’ capabilities, and importantly, for falling prey into mainstream media’s hype. 

This is a great example of bubble psychology. The same lessons which will permeate and eventually apply to the Philippine capital markets.

As British essayist, critic, poet, and novelist Gilbert Keith Chesterton once sarcastically remarked, 

"Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another."

Reality simply dealt false dogmatism a rude and painful awakening.