Pacman Fever: Manny Pacquiao Fans Thrilled to be in Las Vegas

Article and Photo by Roy Bennett (In Las Vegas)

As you walk down the Las Vegas strip one thing becomes immediately apparent. The big fight crowd are in town. Fans proudly display their national colors or images of their fighter on T-shirts and cardboard cut out likenesses. The Filipino contingent are ubiquitous. Smiling, laughing and projecting an atmosphere of such general merriment you’d think they were going to a party rather than a fistfight. Perhaps they share some unspoken knowledge of some deep secret. Something the rest of us have no inkling of. Suffice to say they are totally and completely 100% behind their fighter. As far as they are concerned Manny Pacquiao has the divine mandate to carry him to victory on Saturday night. The result is already written. And they believe, beneath the flashing fists of the Filipino buzzsaw, Floyd Mayweather, JR. will taste the bitter pill of defeat for the first time.