Pacquiao pays homage to Pancho Villa

LOS ANGELES, Cali.: On this day on June 18, 1923 or 96 years ago, Pancho Villa of the Philippines knocked out cold Jimmy Wilde of Wales in the seventh round of their world flyweight championship fight before a jubilant 23,000 fans at the Polo Grounds in New York.

The small, but terrible Villa, then only 22, thus, became the first Filipino and Asian, for that matter, to win a world boxing title, a feat duplicated by at least no less than a dozen more of his compatriots – Small Montana, Little Dado, Dado Marino, among others of the olden times and present day hero Manny Pacquiao, who, likewise, at one time or another ruled the 112-pound class.