Pacquiao honored as Fighter of the Year for the third time

Manny Pacquiao seems to have the habit of winning something, whether it’s a fight or an award, just about every time he makes the long trip to the United States.

The newly elected congressman from the Philippines accepted his third Fighter of the Year award Friday, while his trainer Freddie Roach was honored for the fourth time by the Boxing Writers Association of America.

“Tonight I overflow with joy and gratitude. I am thankful that, just like Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier and other boxers, I decided to get into boxing,” Pacquiao said.

Pacquiao won by a huge landslide in the voting by the organization’s members, after a year that featured a spectacular second-round knockout of Ricky Hatton to win a light welterweight belt and a brutal 12th-round stoppage of Miguel Cotto that gave Pacquiao a welterweight title and belts in a record seven divisions.

Besides this recognition, Pacquiao also accepted a special award as Fighter of the Decade.

“I confronted poverty by trusting God and dreaming big,” Pacquiao said. “I was convinced I could succeed in boxing. The boxing ring could be the breeding ground for my dreams.”

Accompanied by his wife, Jinkee, and most of his family, Pacquiao will remain in New York to watch the Cotto-Foreman bout on Saturday in the first fight at Yankee Stadium in more than three decades.

He will then head to Washington on Monday to meet with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, promoter Bob Arum said, before a family vacation in Mexico.

Then it’s back to the Philippines, where Congress convenes in July.

Meanwhile, Arum will continue work on perhaps the most highly anticipated fight in decades, between Pacquiao and the undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr—the two contenders for the unofficial title of world’s pound-for-pound champion. The two nearly reached an agreement to fight earlier this year, but negotiations broke down when Mayweather insisted on Olympic-style drug testing and Pacquiao refused to have blood drawn within 24 days of a fight.

We sure know what the fans are dying for to watch, and let’s wait and see if this time the mega bout between both fighters would finally push through.