Despite having come from a bridal shower the night before, where I let my hair down and indulged in not so moderate debauchery, I woke up way before I should have to catch the Manny Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey fight. Naturally, as I always forget, there was nothing to be seen on local television before noon except for the undercard fights. Nevertheless, as I was up anyway, I went online and tried to find a website streaming the fight for free. Good luck to me, right?
As I was registering for a MySandbox account on the off chance that I could still catch the fight as a loyal Smart Bro subscriber, my mother, who is currently in Bohol, texted me that she had found a free live telecast of the fight on a foreign cable channel. “The commentator speaks in English,” she texted me, “but the commercials are in another language.”
Too bad we had decided to part ways with SkyCable months earlier.
Her first text was followed by a flurry of others, coming as fast as Pacman could punch. Clottey was a dirty fighter. He hit Pacquiao below the belt many times. Pacquiao was bleeding. Wawa si Pacquiao. Clottey’s reach was longer. People are praying for Manny. Clottey held Manny’s head and punched it. Pray he wins… Dear God, what’s a girl to do?
But first, let me just say my mother, like me, does not really understand the technicals of boxing at all, despite, like me, having grown up with a father who was so into it.
So, what’s a girl who only has local stations with eight-minute commercials between national anthems to do? Turn to Twitter, of course.
And Twitter, of course, did not disappoint. I follow media practitioners like @juliusbabao, media outfits like @ABSCBNNews and @PhilStarNews, and some Internet personalities. I also had some friends who were watching at a restaurant or bar and doing their own live tweeting.
Let me just say: Facebook was eerily silent. Maybe it had something to do with someone posting he would punch spoilers—or those who give away the ending or results without being asked and, thus, ruining it for others—in the face?
In contrast, on Twitter, nobody was hating on spoilers. Live updates were welcome or anticipated, even.
Thus, I spent my early afternoon reading texts from my mother that went along the same vein as the above and tweets from various people, many of them more knowledgeable, tweeting along the lines of, “Congrats, Manny. Yawn.” or “Clottey, man up!” And by the time the actual fight (and a gazillion minutes of commercials peddling everything, from paint to politicians) was being shown, I already felt like I had seen it, from the three sexy Dallas Cheerleaders who sang the American National Anthem to Ariel Pineda’s rendition of our National Anthem that earned the ire of the National Historical Institute again to all twelve boring rounds of a fight wherein Pacquiao’s opponent just wanted to not get knocked out.
I’ve come to depend on Twitter for things that traditional media does not have the speed for, save for live telecasts: earthquakes and other such natural disasters, wars, heavily-guarded-by-PPV sporting events, and inside scoop on the latest showbiz and political news.
Just last week, I was one of those reading the controversial (and now deleted) retweets from @iamkrisaquino and @iloveruffag. It was an online continuation of that now settled walkout issue that started on live television.
The night I am writing this, just before Twitter’s home page went down, I saw a tweet from @ABSCBNNews mentioning the possibility of Kris Aquino’s leaving The Buzz. I was out this afternoon and didn’t have time to catch up one of my guilty pleasures.
I totally would have missed that scoop if not for Twitter. I’m probably going to follow that up on Twitter too.