Mendoza: A vow broken

LATHROP, California—As I said, I never wanted to go to America again. After flying here almost yearly since 1981, sometimes twice a year, I sort of lost the appetite to step on American soil again.

That was after I covered the Pacquiao-Morales fight in 2006.

That was in Las Vegas, where Pacquiao stopped Morales in the third round to put a brutal ending to their trilogy in the fighting senator’s favor, 2-1.

It should have been a 3-0 rout had Pacquiao not absorbed a head butt that caused an eyebrow cut in the fifth round. Blood streaming down his cheek had impaired his vision, allowing Morales to survive a near-knockdown in the 12th and escaping with a close points-victory.

But in their next two fights the following year in 2006, Pacquiao knocked Morales out both times.

I paid my way into the third fight, tagging along my wife and her sister living in Los Angeles.

“My treat my dear ladies,” I said to the sisters.

But Ofel, my wife’s sister, had begged off at the last minute. Saved me $115++.

“I get nervous as the fight wears on,” she said.

Even before the fight could start, Mexicans in the packed Vegas arena were already pumped up. The beer-guzzling Mexican seated next to my wife was getting a bit unruly, repeatedly claiming Morales would win by knockout.

“Don’t mind him,” I kept telling my wife.

When Morales got finally knocked out in the third, the Mexican stood up first and told us, “Your Pacquiao is really mucho fantastico!”

“Gracias senor,” said my wife.

When we got home, I told my wife: “This should be our last trip to America.”

Not that I don’t love America anymore. Far from that.

You just don’t dump Broadway, the Met, the Moma, Guggenheim, Central Park and, yes, the North Dakota where John Lennon used to live. All are in New York, the city that doesn’t sleep.

“Nuyok is my fave city in the world,” writer-journalist Sol F. Juvida keeps saying. “If only for its Broadway, everything else is gravy.”

And so from here, we fly to Nuyok. To watch either “Beautiful” or “Hadestown,” maybe?

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