There's something about boxing that allows people with
the hunger to greatly improve their personal circumstances. Perhaps it's the
individual nature of the sport or the productive outlet that the sport
provides. Whatever it is about boxing, many boxers demonstrate the drive and
the fight to work their way out of dire financial circumstances to financial
stability and success. Manny Pacquiao definitely fits that mold.
In our book, The
Road Out of Debt: Bankruptcy and Other Solutions to Your Financial Problems,
we provide a how-to guide and a road map on how to get out of debt, with and
without bankruptcy. For inspiration to carry you through on your road out of
debt, Manny Pacquiao is our next highlighted example of someone who rose
out of financial troubles to great success.
Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao, also known as Manny Pacquiao,
was born in the Philippines on December 17, 1978. Abandoned by his father and
brought up by a tough-as-nails mother, Manny was a poor boy.
He left home at 14 because his mother, who worked odd
jobs, factory labor and hawked vegetables by roadsides, wasn't really making
enough to feed her six children. He left home to earn money elsewhere so he could
relieve the burden on his mother. Up to that time, he was often absent from
school because the family needed him to help sell snacks and trinkets on the
city streets. He also loved boxing.
Manny fled General Santos City at age 14 by stowing away
on a ship bound for Manila. He had no friends, no money and one goal: "I wanted
to be a world champion," Manny
recalls. When he got to Manila, Manny first worked as a laborer. His
enthusiasm for boxing, however, had him returning to the ring, fighting in
run-for-cover, barely legal matches pulled together in one of Manila's cramped
suburbs. Many boxers died after these fights, including some of Manny's friends.
He gained local renown quickly on the amateur and
pro-boxing circuit as a powerful puncher with little discipline and less fear.
"There was hardly any science in his fighting," says Rudy Salud, a Manila-based
boxing manager. "He fought like a mad dog. "
When he was just 19, Manny won a world flyweight title.
Two years later, he added a world superbantamweight title. But it wasn't until
manager Nazario hooked him up with Freddie Roach, a respected boxing trainer in
Los Angeles, that Manny began to reach his potential.
Roach took Manny's natural aggressiveness and fearlessness and combined them
with defense and discipline.
Now, Manny is an eight-division world champion, the first
boxer in history to win ten world titles in eight different weight divisions.
He was named "Fighter of the Decade" for the 2000′s by the Boxing Writers
Association of America (BWAA). He is also currently rated as the "number one"
pound-for-pound best boxer in the world by several sporting news and boxing
websites, including The Ring, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, NBC Sports, Yahoo!
Sports, Sporting Life and About.com.
Now, in his hometown of General Santos City on the island
of Mindanao, he and his family own commercial buildings, a convenience store,
cafés and a souvenir shop. He also has the reputation for great generosity,
including spending thousands of dollars a day feeding and entertaining guests
and distributing $800,000 in tickets to friends for a single fight.
Manny Pacquiao had
a powerful drive throughout his life to become a world champion boxer. That
drive propelled him on the road out of debt from extreme poverty to world
champion and great success.
Read more
articles about consumer debt by Ted Connolly, co-author of The Road Out of Debt