Manny Pacquiao

Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao (born December17, 1978) is a Filipino politician and former professional boxer.

Nicknamed "PacMan", he is widely regarded as one of the greatest professional boxers of all time.

He was the first boxer to win the lineal championship in five different weight classes, the first boxer to win major world titles in four of the eight "glamour divisions" (flyweight, featherweight, lightweight, and welterweight), and is the only boxer to hold world championships across four decades (1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s).

Pacquiao is also the first boxer in history to win major world titles in four of the original eight weight classes of boxing, also known as the "glamour divisions" (flyweight, featherweight, lightweight and welterweight), and the first boxer ever to become a four-decade world champion, winning world championships across four decades (1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s).

According to his autobiography, Pacquiao said watching Mike Tyson's defeat of James "Buster" Douglas in 1990 with his Uncle Sardo as an experience that, "changed my life forever".

Mejia began training his nephew in a makeshift home gym.

After 6 months of training, Pacquiao began boxing in a park in General Santos eventually traveling to other cities to fight higher-ranked opponents.

By age 15, he was considered the best junior boxer in the southern Philippines and he moved to Manila.

He is also the longest reigning top-ten active boxer on The Ring's pound for pound list from 2003 to 2016.

Pacquiao has generated approximately 20.4 million in pay-per-view (PPV) buys and $1.3 billion in revenue from 26 PPV-bouts.

In February 2007, Pacquiao took and passed a high school equivalency exam, and was awarded with a high school diploma by the Department of Education.

Manny Pacquiao has an amateur record of 60–4 and a record of 62–8–2 as a professional, with 39 wins by knockout.

Boxing historian Bert Sugar ranked Pacquiao as the greatest southpaw fighter of all time.

Pacquiao entered politics in 2010 when he was elected as the representative of Sarangani.

According to Forbes, he was the second highest paid athlete in the world in 2012 and 2015, and the eighth highest paid athlete of the 2010s.

Pacquiao was long rated as the best active boxer in the world, pound for pound, by most sporting news and boxing websites, including ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Sporting Life, Yahoo! Sports, About.com, BoxRec and The Ring, beginning from his climb to lightweight until his losses in 2012.

Outside of boxing and politics, Pacquiao was the head coach and a player for the Philippine Basketball Association team Kia/Mahindra for three seasons from 2014 to 2017, before founding the semi-professional Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League.

He has also starred in films and has presented television shows.

In music, he has released multiple PARI-certified platinum albums and songs; his cover of "Sometimes When We Touch" peaked at 19 in the United States on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart after a performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!.

He is an Evangelical Christian preacher, philanthropist, and entrepreneur.

Manny Pacquiao was born as Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao in Kibawe, Bukidnon, and raised in General Santos, Philippines.

He is the son of Rosalio Pacquiao and actress Dionisia Dapidran.

His parents separated when he was in sixth grade, after his father had an affair.

He is the fourth of six siblings, one of whom, Alberto "Bobby" Pacquiao, is also a politician and former professional boxer.

At the age of 14, Pacquiao moved to Manila and lived on the streets, worked as a construction worker and had to pick between eating or sending money to his mother.

Pacquiao completed his elementary education at Saavedra Saway Elementary School in General Santos, but dropped out of high school due to extreme and abject poverty.

As of 2015, Pacquiao's fights had generated $1.2 billion in revenue from his 25 pay-per-view bouts.

Per Forbes, he was the world's second highest paid athlete in 2015.

Pacquiao signed with Bob Arum's Top Rank from 2015 to 2017 and Al Haymon's Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) promotion on 2018 alongside Paradigm Sports on 2020.

On September 29, 2021, Pacquiao announced his retirement from boxing, in a post on social media.

Pacquiao was introduced to boxing at the age of 12 by his maternal uncle Sardo Mejia.

He previously served as a senator of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022.

Pacquiao is the only eight-division world champion in the history of boxing and has won twelve major world titles.

He held this post for six years until he was elected and assumed office as a senator in 2016.

In July 2019, Pacquiao became the oldest welterweight world champion in history at the age of 40, and the first boxer in history to become a recognized four-time welterweight champion after defeating Keith Thurman to win the WBA (Super) welterweight title.

He became the leader of then-ruling PDP–Laban party in 2020 (which is disputed since 2021).

On September 19, 2021, Pacquiao officially declared his candidacy for President of the Philippines in the 2022 Philippine presidential election; he ended up losing to Bongbong Marcos.

In 2020, Pacquiao topped the Ranker's list of best boxers of the 21st century.

In 2021, he also ranked number 1 in DAZN's list of the top 10 boxers of the last 30 years.

Pacquiao made history by being the first boxer ever to win world titles in eight weight divisions, having won twelve major world titles, as well as being the first boxer to win the lineal championship in five different weight classes.