Fight took its toll on hurting Manny

HOLLYWOOD – Manny Pacquiao, the great champion, is hurting.

Inside the chartered Boeing 757 that flew him out of Dallas Sunday afternoon, he showed signs that he’d been through a tough fight.

The lights to the first-class cabin were dim. Maybe he wanted or needed some rest. And when he posed for a photograph, for just one shot, his face looked empty.

As he walked slowly on the tarmac, with his wife Jinkee to his left, and his huge entourage behind him, Pacquiao, in a thick brown jacket and black fedora, pushed his head down.

You knew he was hurting.

It was not the Manny Pacquiao who always came out smiling.

“Nasaktan din (He got hurt). Napagod (He got tired),” said one of his close friends who stayed up with him until five in the morning inside his Gaylord Texan Hotel suite, hours after the fight.

Pacquiao watched the tape of the fight and by the time he went to bed, the sun was almost out.

There was swelling around his eyes, with welts on his face. He also complained of some pain on his ribcage. He took some big shots from Antonio Margarito but not as many as those he had landed.

“The marks on his face will be gone in a couple days, but the pain in his body will be there a little longer,” said a Filipino doctor who travelled with the group.

Pacquiao needs no medication, unlike Margarito, who is scheduled to undergo surgery Tuesday in Texas for a fracture on his right eye socket.

“It’s really hard to fight a big opponent, bigger than me. I gave it my best. And I can’t believe that I beat someone this big, this strong,” he said after the fight.

“It was a hard fight, the hardest in my career. He was tough and strong. I felt it. He was really bigger than me. But I want to make the people happy. That’s why sometimes I fought him toe to toe and exchanged punches with him,” Pacquiao also said.

Another Pacquiao, the boxer’s mother, Mommy Dionisia, was hurting inside the three-hour flight from Dallas to LA.

“Parang ako ang tinamaan ng mga suntok ni Margarito,” she said.

Late into the fight, witnessed by a screaming crowd of 41,734, Mommy Dionisia collapsed from her ringside seat, and was rushed to a nearby hospital.

It was case of a panic attack, but hours after she was allowed to go home. For that brief stay at the hospital, she incurred bills amounting to nearly $1,500, and a photo taken of her showed her on a hospital bed.

Actor Derek Ramsey and top-notch cosmetic surgeon Vicky Belo, who both came to see the fight, were among her visitors.

From the airport, Pacquiao headed to his La Palazzo apartment to rest, and on Monday he should make his traditional visit to the Wild Card Gym. On Tuesday he’ll be at Lake Tahoe for a one-night concert.

But that’s if he’ll be feeling better that morning after. Otherwise, he skips the concert.