Heartbroken Filipinos turn to humor to ease pain

Floyd Mayweather Jr., right, hugs Manny Pacquiao after their welterweight title fight on Saturday, May 2, 2015 in Las Vegas. AP PHOTO/ISAAC BREKKEN

MANILA, Philippines–What is Twitter for but to “twit?”

A country heartbroken by people’s champ Manny Pacquiao’s defeat can only turn to humor and, yes, to literal twitting, to somehow numb the pain.

Just seconds after the historic fight between Pacquiao and American Floyd Mayweather Jr., social media were flooded with suggestions of declaring May 3rd a “national day of hugging” in the Philippines, or possibly even “a national day of mourning.”

Proposals of Mayweather’s possibly exploring a career in track and field also swamped the Internet, a stab at his fighting—or nonfighting—style.

Memes of what was touted, “The Fight of the Century,” showed a boxer with the superimposed head of Mayweather running around another fighter portrayed as Pacquiao. Another posted on the @FreeHugsFloyd Twitter account showed a picture of Mayweather hugging Pacquiao captioned “Take me into your loving arms.”

Another photograph showed a superimposed picture of Mayweather over the face of someone running and was captioned, “Run Floyd run,” reminiscent of the movie “Forrest Gump.”

Dismayed Filipinos generally took to the social media, particularly on Twitter, to criticize and poke fun at how the fight of the century turned out. @caloyconde tweeted, “Too bad Mayweather is not as affectionate to his girlfriends as he was to Pacquiao #DomesticViolence #hugz #MayPac.”

Taking a dig at Mayweather’s strategy, @mattkoff wrote: “No Floyd you have it backwards, you’re supposed to hug women and hit your opponent,” while @ginoboi said, “Breaking News: Mayweather gets a new sponsor: Huggies.”

Poking fun on the judges, @cyster_o2 observed, “Pacquiao—240 punches thrown and 60 + landed; Mayweather—300 hugs and 100 miles ran.” @NeverStop_25 proposed the new point system used in the fight: A point each for a jab, a hook, and an uppercut. 5 points for a hug and 10 points for running.

Mayweather’s tactic of using his agility and quick feet in the fight, Filipinos translated as simply running away. @gangbadoy wrote: “Floyd Mayweather won the 3K fun run today.”

Some went as far as to create their definition of “Mayweather.” For @GGSphere, it is a verb meaning “the deliberate act of running from danger due to extreme fear of punches; usually preceded by a koala hug.”

Hugging day

Still “#Luto ang Laban” went viral on the Net with @NatNatGilmore writing, “Dear judges thanks for counting the hugs and not the punches #MayPac.”

Most netizens sought a declaration of “national hugging day” or “national power hug day” while @justineletargo asked, “Can we declare tomorrow national day of mourning? #SalamatManny.”

After a flurry of comments against Mayweather for whom some Twitter accounts invented names for, like “Mayhugger,” “Snuggleweather,” and even “cuddle guy,” netizens turned their ire on boxing commentator Max Kellerman who interviewed Pacquiao after the fight.

There were those who described him as biased for fielding pointblank questions with Pacquiao fresh out of his defeat via a unanimous decision. He did not feel the need to apologize for asking Pacquiao tough questions but said in his Twitter account, “I love Manny. He’s a pleasure to deal with & to watch fight. Manny disagreed w/ judges. Had to ask him about it. #MayPac.”

Even foreigners were not impressed by the Pacquiao-Mayweather bout, Actress @ElizabethBanks wrote: “Floyd Mayweather is an incredible fighter, but he just bored me out of US$100 #MayPac.”

American songwriter and Linkin Park lead vocalist, Chester Bennington, remarked in his Twitter account, “Sounds like Mayweather won a fight by not fighting again. Ghandi would be proud!”

Underwhelmed

Professional boxers and legends Oscar de la Hoya and Mike Tyson felt underwhelmed by the “Fight of the Century.” De La Hoya tweeted, “Call me old school but I like the fans getting their money’s worth by watching an action packed fight” while Tyson simply wrote, “We waited 5 years for that … #underwhelmed #MayPac.”

“Big letdown in Vegas. Was that a boxing match or Dancing With the Stars,” said Jim Carrey.

Ever a Pacquiao fan, Sylvester Stallone was all praise for the people’s champ, “Manny Pacquiao without a doubt the single bravest and most exciting fighter to ever lace on gloves. No one comes close. Seen them all!”

Jimmy Kimmel, who volunteered to be Pacquiao’s Justin Bieber, tweeted, “Disappointing result but what a fight—thank you for making me your Bieber @MannyPacquiao—you are a champion.”

Award-winning British singer and songwriter Ellie Goulding became a fan, writing, “No worries Pacquiao you won me.”

“Mayweather has hugged Manny more times than my dad has hugged me my whole life,” actor Donald Glover tweeted.

5 million tweets

CNN Hero of the Year Efren Peñaflorida said that “as a teacher, I admire @MannyPacquiao for teaching #Mayweather to dance around, to humble himself and to hug a lot! #MayPac #RealVictory”

Binibining Pilipinas-Universe 2015 Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach vowed revenge.

“Kalma lang guys. Ako bahala. Babawi tayo sa Miss Universe!! (Keep calm guys. I’ll take care of it. We’ll make it up in the Miss Universe!!)–With reports from Jovic Yee, Ramon Royandoyan and Jessica Pag-iwayan and Inquirer Research

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