When You Win Even If You Lost

Lost in the hype over Manny Pacquiao’s dom­i­nat­ing per­for­mance over Diaz is David Diaz him­self. From the arti­cles I read about him in Pacland, and Philbox​ing​.Com, David seemed to be a fighter with a really good per­son­al­ity. No harsh words were ever exchanged from both camps before the fight. In media inter­views, Diaz never said any­thing harsh to Manny and just stuck with talk­ing about his plans for the fight. He’s a real class act. He reminds me of Rocky Balboa–someone who may not be tal­ented, but fights with his heart on his sleeve. In vic­tory and in defeat, you could not help but respect the guy.

I think David will be invited here in the philip­pines to endorse some prod­ucts, like Erik Morales. The same could not be said about Manuel “Cry­baby” Marquez.

Here’s a story from The Chicago Tri­bune about what hap­pened after the fight…

Boxer David Diaz Keeps His Head Up In Defeat
Best qual­i­ties show even in bru­tal defeat

By Melissa Isaac­son | Tri­bune staff reporter
8:36 PM CDT, June 29, 2008

LAS VEGAS — The ambu­lance was wait­ing, but David Diaz wasn’t quite ready to get in. Most of the blood had been rinsed off, and he was back in his jeans and T-shirt. But the dam­age was graphic and even more shock­ing 45 min­utes after it had been inflicted.

The ques­tion was what dam­age had been done to his psyche.

“I’m OK,” he said, react­ing to the pained expres­sion of some­one study­ing him, the deep gashes just below his right eye­brow and bridge of his nose that were still ooz­ing, the eyes already black­ened and half-closed, the sliced and swollen lips, his entire face a map of gore and pain.

Amaz­ingly, the smile was still intact.

Diaz had called Sat­ur­day night’s fight against Manny Pac­quiao the biggest of his career, and there was lit­tle doubt of that. They were already anoint­ing Pac­quiao the best fighter on the planet, pos­sessed of skills that already had won him cham­pi­onship belts in three other weight classes.

Even though Diaz was the defend­ing world light­weight cham­pion with a gaudy record, the crit­i­cism was that the Chicagoan hadn’t fought any­one, that he was a plod­der get­ting by on heart.

They were right about that last part.

Diaz had walked away from the sport eight years ago because he had lost that ele­ment so cru­cial to his box­ing. He couldn’t focus on train­ing when he was mourn­ing his older brother, who had died of AIDS, and wor­ry­ing about his mother, Basil­ica, in des­per­ate need of a new kidney.

But two years away was enough, and with his mother stronger after a trans­plant and the encour­age­ment of his fam­ily and his future wife, he went back to the gym and re-emerged a new man and a new fighter.

It was not his fault that he had made his mark and found suc­cess with inspir­ing dura­bil­ity and tough­ness, that he had found sup­port and pop­u­lar­ity within the sport and the Mex­i­can com­mu­nity because of his spirit and kind­ness, that he had con­tin­ued win­ning with­out a lethal knock­out punch. And he was not apologizing.

So there he was Sat­ur­day night, a 4–1 under­dog, seem­ingly half the pop­u­la­tion of the Philip­pines fill­ing the Man­dalay Bay Events Cen­ter to cheer coun­try­man Pac­quiao, a pay-per-view audi­ence look­ing on.

Jog­ging toward the ring, Diaz rested his gloves on the shoul­ders of the diminu­tive Anselmo Diaz, his father and the man he called his hero.

Diaz had pointed out his dad at a news con­fer­ence Wednes­day. “I love you, Papi,” he told him.

Diaz climbed into the ring look­ing proud and defi­ant. But before long, even his oppo­nent was wor­ried for him as blow after blow landed — and landed hard, open­ing cuts on his face that even­tu­ally stained both box­ers’ trunks pink. Gamely, Diaz hung in, even tried to mount his own offen­sive in the sec­ond round. But indeed, this was a truly gifted fighter, and as the crowd screamed, “Manny, Manny,” their hero demon­strated his mes­mer­iz­ing speed and vicious force.

Diaz had no chance. So why wasn’t the ref­eree stop­ping the fight? Why wasn’t the ring doc­tor or his own corner?

“I thought they could have stopped the fight sooner,” the dig­ni­fied Pac­quiao said. “I asked the ref­eree, and he told me, ‘Go ahead and continue.’ ”

The pro-Pacquiao post­fight crowd, with its typ­i­cal col­lec­tion of han­dlers and fans and assorted hangers-on, roared with laughter.

In fact, Diaz stayed on his feet into the ninth round before a left cross to the jaw finally knocked him flat, because for bet­ter or worse, this is his gift. And whether con­sciously or not, he was demon­strat­ing to those watch­ing Sat­ur­day and those who will tune in for the replay Thurs­day night on HBO pre­cisely why he was the defend­ing title-holder.

It was not lost on his oppo­nent, who tried to pull him to his feet after the TKO was official.

“I was sur­prised he didn’t go down before that,” Pac­quiao said. “He was the tough­est oppo­nent I’ve had.”

Stand­ing next to the ambu­lance, Diaz grinned at the sug­ges­tion that there ever had been a point at which he knew the fight was over.

“I always think I have a chance,” he said. “I always think I can pull it out. Some­times I think I can do it to the point where I can almost see the shore­line. And then I went under.”

This was not a man in denial. Rather, he was in a place only those at the high­est ech­e­lon of ath­letic com­pe­ti­tion can truly under­stand, the feel­ing of sat­is­fac­tion amid the pain and dis­ap­point­ment, when you know you have given every­thing you have and sim­ply lost to some­one better.

“The beauty of this sport is that you have to go through all of it, even some of it that will kill you,” Diaz said. “I trained really hard, but you have to learn how to win and how to lose.”

He turned to get into the ambu­lance, laugh­ing that he’d much rather be hang­ing out with his fam­ily and friends.

“They still love me,” he said. “They’re just glad I’m still alive. Every­one thought I was going to die.”