Religion has nothing to do with Pacquiao's fall

By ALEX P. VIDAL / PNS
December 12, 2012

If it is true that “God punished” Manny Pacquiao supposedly for converting from Roman Catholic to “born again” Christian, then God is not just; He is cruel and He plays favorites.

Since most of us believe that God is pure love in its most supreme form, He could not have guided Juan Manuel Marquez’s lethal right to inflict harm on a faithful follower.

God has laid down from all eternity the law which governs all things, like light from the sun; but He will never change the economy of world boxing for Marquez who is a Roman Catholic.

What happened to Pacquiao also happened to other great marquee names such as Muslim convert Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis, Roberto Duran, Tomas Hearns, Sugar Ray Leonard, and to the now Rev. George Foreman.

Single Blow

When all these rings titans were felled with one single blow in high profile fights, nobody blamed God or their conversion to any faith for their Waterloo.

Ali (56-5, 37 KOs), formerly Cassius Clay, converted from Christian to Muslim after winning the world heavyweight crown from Sonny Liston on February 25, 1964. As a Muslim, he racked up 10 straight wins before losing by unanimous decision to Joe Frazier for the world heavyweight championship on March 8, 1971 in New York.

In this defeat to Frazier (32-4, 27 KOs), Ali was floored with a single punch and nearly suffered a knockout loss but managed to finish the fight scheduled for 15 rounds. Nobody blamed his shocking loss for his decision to embrace Allah.

Before he became a pastor, Foreman suffered a humiliating 8th round technical knockout defeat to Muslim Ali on October 30, 1974 in Zaire. In this epic war dubbed “Rumble in the Jungle,” the Christian God and Allah did not intervene to save their respective “bets.”

Muslim

Another Muslim fighter Hasim Rahman (50-8, 41 KOs) made headlines all over the globe when he scored a major upset in the heavyweight division with a one-punch knockout win over previously indestructible Brition Lennox Lewis (41-2, 32 KOs) at the Carnival City, Brakpan, Gauteng, South Africa on April 22, 2001. Again, nobody credited Allah for Rahman’s extra-ordinary power that night. Nobody blamed Lewis for missing his “duties and obligations” as Christian Anglican faithful.

The distinction between religion and superstition is fundamental in the fall of Pacquiao.