Manny Pacquiao was 30 minutes late.  He was lost somewhere in the MGM Grand working out his calf muscles so they wouldn’t cramp in his fight against Tim Bradley.  No one could find him, and the mystery just deepened around him.  We had thought we knew Manny, but in the runup to Saturday’s fight he had seemed to change so much that it didn’t even seem unusual if he never made his ring walk.  But make it he did.  They eventually found him, and he eventually took his red gloves and hit Tim Bradley hard enough to make him lose his balance and maybe even break the American’s ankle.   And for eight, nine, maybe even ten of the twelve rounds, Manny looked like he was still Manny Pacquiao, the best boxer in the world, and that was kind of nice to see, that Manny was back, in his own way.   He might not have thrown as many combinations in a row like he used to, and he didn’t move quite as fast and with those impossible angles that he once created, but he moved well enough, he punched well enough, he was exciting enough, and he certainly won, didn’t he?

PacMan: Behind The Scenes With Manny Pacquiao is available on Amazon and at bookstores worldwide. On Sunday it was recommended by the Los Angeles Times.

Gary Andrew Poole is a contributor to TIME. He has also written for Esquire, The Atlantic, the New York Times, and the Independent on Sunday (London). His first book–The Galloping Ghost: Red Grange, an American Football Legend, published by Houghton Mifflin–is in bookstores. It has been praised by Sports Illustrated, the Boston Globe, the Dallas Morning News, the Washington Post, Christianity Today, and the Chicago Sun-Times, among other publications. His book PacMan: Behind The Scenes With Manny Pacquiao-The Best Pound-for-Pound Fighter in the World (Da Capo)is now available in bookstores. It has been praised by Sports Illustrated, New York Newsday, the Wall Street Journal, Boxing Insider, The Daily Telegraph, the BBC and the Los Angeles Times.