But when he got into the ring, he let his fists do the talking. He was as fast with them as he was with his tongue. His style was unorthodox, defying boxing wisdom. He let his hands down; sometimes he danced, sometimes he didn’t, which confounded his opponents; and in his classic fight with George Foreman, he broke taboo by leaning against the ropes. But he won, brilliantly.

Manny Pacquiao does not spout poetry, or advertise himself. But he is not loath to talk, when asked to, or sing, even when not asked to. The first he does reasonably well, the second quite impressively. He has a good voice and likes to sing. Almost unbelievably, he had a concert lined up after his fight with Miguel Cotto. Psy war of sorts? Maybe. If it was, it did the trick.

More likely, it was the feeling of sheer invincibility. Like Mike Tyson had before he got floored by Buster Douglas, like Foreman had before he got floored by Ali, and like Ali himself had before he got floored by the US government. The last, quite paradoxically and wondrously, became Ali’s greatest victory. He got up, and floored the US government. Pacquiao has that same feeling of invincibility. He can’t get beat. In his bout with Cotto, he probably worried more about how he would sing than how he would fight.

You saw the contrast in the faces right from the start. When Pacquiao went out of his dugout, he was smiling broadly, enjoying himself. There was not a single line of worry on his face. When Cotto did, he looked, well, sad. It wasn’t exactly that he looked defeated, it was that doubt was written in his eyes.

When Pacquiao gets to the ring, he lets his fists do the talking. He is as fast with them as he is with showering friends with gratuity. His style is unorthodox, largely uncharted by boxing wisdom. He lunges, he positions himself awkwardly, and in his fight with Cotto did the rope-a-dope. But he wins, brilliantly.

After his fight with Cotto, during the interviews, Pacquiao did two things. One, he advertised his new movie, claiming for it qualities he has never claimed for himself: “Watch it, it’s the best.” And, two, he sang. Quite the showman now, which should, to paraphrase Cuba Gooding Jr, bring in the money.

Most times Ali fought, he would climb out of the ring looking as pretty (his word) as he did when he climbed into it. There were exceptions, such as when Ken Norton broke his jaw not long after he beat the US government in his grandest fight of all. Or such as when he fought Joe Frazier in the "Thrilla in Manila", where he was just as ready to collapse as his opponent from dehydration, fatigue, and 15 rounds of punishment. “It was like death,” he said afterward. “Closest thing to dying that I know of.”

But you should see the other guy, as they say. Frazier was a mess, one of his eyes so puffed up he couldn’t see. Ali would marvel later on and say that if he’d been hit as many times as Frazier, he’d have quit long ago.

Alas, he did not. He continued to fight long past his prime, possibly for the glory of it, possibly for the money of it. He had alimony to pay. The signs of beating didn’t show on his face, but it registered on his brain. Not long after his retirement, he developed the shakes, which turned out to be Parkinson’s disease. Today, he can barely talk, though if more recent news are to go by, he still does, albeit slowly, albeit still wittily. His tongue may have gotten slower, but his wits and wit have not. He has paid the price, and what a price to pay.

Most times Pacquiao has fought, he would climb out of the ring as unmarked as when he climbed into it. Maybe the hair on his face hides some of the puffing - he now looks a bit like Roberto Duran, and De la Hoya, Hatton, and Cotto at least can swear he is the real manos de piedra, the hands of stone. Not so his opponents, who look like they’ve been questioned by a lost command of the al-Qaida. I myself worried horrendously about Hatton, I thought he’d be revived in a hospital, if at all.

Reminders that for all the diminution of its bloodiness, boxing remains a savage sport. Despite the gloves, despite the presence of a referee to stop fights, despite the cutting back of the rounds to 12, boxing is still capable of maiming, brain addling, and killing.

During his last fight, Pacquiao developed a small blood clot in an ear. It took a minor operation to remove it, and it was done only as a precaution. He would step out to cameras later on wearing a bandaged ear and a bandaged hand - the latter from the force of knuckle hitting bone - which bathed him in greater glory, a veteran emerging from a fierce campaign. Without someone to whisper in his ear, unlike the Roman conquerors charioting down the Appian Way, "All glory is fleeting". Or indeed, "All glory comes with a price".

Pacquaio’s next adversary will be the hardest, toughest, roughest to fight. The one adversary that has brought down many a stouthearted champion. No, it’s not Floyd Mayweather Jr. It’s the same adversary Muhammad Ali fought and lost, it’s the same adversary Michael Jordan fought and lost. The certainty of going down in history as the best fighter of one’s era is nothing compared to the ecstasy of going out into a crowd of adoring fans, or frenzied compatriots, their howls of jubilation ringing in ears just freed of a blood clot. The present always seems to burn more brightly than the past. There’s always the lure of going farther to beat the unbeatable foe.