the wily filipino

By the end, he had made history, becoming the first man to win titles in seven weight classes.

Of course, weight classes aren’t what they once were. But that’s not Pacquiao’s fault. Nor is it his greatest accomplishment. More important, he now merits inclusion in the elite fraternity of all-time greats.

“The best fighter I have ever seen,” said his promoter, Bob Arum. “And that includes Muhammad Ali, and Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler. The best fighter I have ever seen.”

A buzz went though the room as Arum invoked Ali. Arum might be practiced in the art of hyperbole, still the statement had merit. Pacquiao is an anomaly. Who else gets better as he gets bigger? What other erstwhile 106-pounder has become a welterweight champion? None. Never happened before. And it probably won’t happen again.

There’s never been a bigger little man.

For a filmmaker whose subject was “the soul’s battlefield,” as Woody Allen once put it, Bergman had surprisingly populist tastes. He relished long gossipy telephone chats and was as likely to watch Fellini’s Amarcord as The Godfather, Pulp Fiction or the Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera. Screening Jurassic Park one day, he marveled at Hollywood ingenuity. “Those Americans know how to put on the pants!” he said.

They also knew how to make the television shows he liked. Bergman was a fan of the Muppets, particularly the out-of-control drummer, Animal, and rarely missed an episode of Sex and the City. “The women are beautiful, and they talk dirty,” he told [his daughter] Linn [Ullmann]. “Do you talk that way with your girlfriends?”