If you've got the slightest interest in boxing you'll know there's a highly anticipated match coming up featuring Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jnr and this is a throwback to the good old days of boxing when we had boxing Gods such as Hearns , Hagler , Leonard and Duran all fighting one another to be crowned undisputed greatest pound for pound champion on the planet . If you're not a boxing fan - and why would you visit this page if you're not ? - Manny first became world champion at flyweight in 1998 . Over the next 17 years he won several more world titles in different weights including light middleweight . So what ? you ask . Well the difference in weight between a flyweight and a light middleweight is just over forty pounds . It is possible to put this type of weight on but not if you're a supreme athlete with very little fat on your body . It's virtually unknown for a boxer to start off in one division and be fighting 20 years later with a duration of eight weight classes . In fact it's also rare for a boxer to have a professional career lasting this long so twenty years after an unknown flyweight makes his professional debut he's involved in one of the most eagerly anticipated fights in sporting history gives you a small hint of the superhuman achievement of Manny . This film KID KULAFU shows the early steps Manny took to sporting immortality
KID KALAFU is an obvious love letter to its subject and don't mean this in a negative way . You can tell Manny is a genuinely decent man and his fight with Timothy Bradley where he lost a split decision in the worst points decision in the history of the sport was met by him by almost saintly polite disbelief which says so much about him as a person . The film also concentrates on a feelgood factor and looking at screenwriter Froi Medina previous credits he did write a previous film called VOICES which involved a music teacher trying to find redemption via a street child . This type of real life feel good story keeps many Hollywood workers in a job but screenwriter Medina and director Paul Soriano do make a film that does have does have sad bits and happy bits but never over does the manipulation of emotion . Shooting the film in the Filipino language does help a lot as does using a native cast who will be absolutely unknown to an English speaking audience and it was good to see a film that states no matter how hard life punches you in the mouth you can succeed if you've got it in you
As for the fight coming up at the weekend the head says Mayweather and the heart says Manny . Let's hope the heart wins out in the end !
Update 3rd May 2015 . Hardlines Manny
