Manny Pacquiao is a well-known rags-to-riches story. And his miraculous journey is again being told as he prepares for Saturday’s highly anticipated fight against Floyd Mayweather.
Trainer Freddie Roach added some serious flair to the tale in an interview with Yahoo Sports! when he revealed one of the driving forces that led to Pacquiao living on the streets of Philippines before turning pro at age 14.
“Manny ran away from home after his father ate his dog,” Roach said.
Yeah. That’s fairly unpleasant. And a legitimate reason to say, “hey, maybe I need a change of scenery.”
“He lived on the street, where he bought doughnuts at a doughnut store and then sold each one for a nickel more to survive.
“He slept in a cardboard box. He fought his way through all this, turned pro at 14, and look at the man he is today.
“The Philippines is a poor place, there’s no welfare, no health system and if you don’t have a job or money then you do anything to survive.”
It seems logical, given that context, that Manny’s father didn’t just cook up the pooch as an act of aggression and was instead employing a desperate measure in a desperate time.
Either way, that sucks. Especially for the dog, who learned a deadly lesson that man’s best friend is sometimes a one-way street.
[H/T: Yahoo Sports]