Boxing Ephemera: Photographs, Memories, Mr. Pacquiao’s Mouthguard, and the Meaning of It All

A Journey Through Keepsakes From Thrilla in Manila to The Fight of the Century

What’s the point of an autograph, really? On the surface it’s just ink—somebody’s name scrawled on a ticket, a program, maybe the back of a fight stub. But if you’ve ever stood in line, waiting, heart beating a little too fast as the pen slid across paper, you know it feels like more.

For that blink of a second, you’re close enough to brush against greatness.

I’ve got a few myself, signed by my favorite fighters. Each one carries its own story—at least to me. But over time I’ve come to see that autographs are only one piece of a larger puzzle.

The real story lives in boxing ephemera: programs, clippings, gloves, even a mouthguard. Odd little things that outlast the final bell and keep the memory breathing.

My father, Hermie Rivera, spent over fifty years as a journalist. Chasing autographs wasn’t his thing. He went to fights to write, to report, to be a witness. And often enough, his accounts themselves turned into keepsakes.

At the Thrilla in Manila in 1975, he served as emcee at one of the press conferences. The Greatest— Muhammad Ali— never one to let the spotlight wander, waved him aside with a grin:

“Hermie, you’re not as dumb as you look.” 

There were plenty of other keepsakes. Long before anybody said “selfie,” he had snapshots with Don King, with legendary ring broadcaster Don Dunphy.

He even introduced me to Joe Frazier at a training camp hotel. No photo of that—just my word.

The press corps broke into laughter. Writers and his friends like Recah Trinidad, Nick Joaquin, even Smokin’ Joe Cantada later slipped the moment into print and verse. 

To my father it was nothing more than another day on the job.

A few days after the fight—the most brutal and spectacular battle ever fought in the ring—he saw Ali again. A photographer handed him a picture: Ali holding a child, the crowd pressing close. And there in the front corner stood my father—the only one smiling. Ali signed it. That small act turned the photo into the crown jewel of our family’s collection.

He had stacks of photos through the years, but this one lasted because my late mother, Cristina Pasaoa Rivera, tucked it away safe.

Last year at the Gala of Champions, my sister, Charina Rivera, placed it in my hands. Finding it again—well, it felt like stumbling onto a hidden treasure. What could have been lost forever became a thread tying Ali’s inscription, my father’s grin, and my family’s care in keeping memory alive.

When it came to souvenirs, my father leaned toward the simple: press passes, fight programs, news clippings. To some they looked like clutter. To me they’re treasure chests. Every credential opens the door to a night when fists flew and history got written under bright lights.

That’s the magic of ephemera. It isn’t meant to sit in drawers forever. It’s meant to be pulled out, handled, remembered. Jim Croce said it best in his classic tune Photographs and Memories. A bent program, a faded clipping, a ticket stub with a smudge of ink—each one hums like a verse of a song.

And before glossy programs and autographs, there was Pierce Egan. I’m fortunate to hold three complete volume sets of his Boxiana in our collection, along with Life in London and Sporting Anecdotes.

They are the cornerstones of boxing literature.

Back in the 1800s, Egan gave bare-knuckle days their voice—slangy, lively, alive. Reading him now, you step into a world where fights were “mills” and crowds were “the fancy.” It would take a dozen lifetimes to read his books, but they will forever remind me—as once imprinted upon me by my father and his friend Jack Fiske—that sometimes the story itself (even the mere fact of having an artifact) is the keepsake.

Other treasures rest on my shelves: more than ten pairs of original Sol Levinson gloves, stitched in San Francisco nearly a century ago. They’re not polished. They’re worn, softened by sweat and resin. Not ornaments—evidence. Fighters almost never signed gloves; most thought it unlucky.

Only one pair in our collection carries a signed name: Benjamin Gan, better known as Small Montana, the second Filipino world champion. The rest stay blank, but alive with history.

And then there’s the piece I never saw coming. Dr. Ed dela Vega, Pacquiao’s dentist, friend to many (which is an understatement), and an unsung humanitarian placed in my hands something remarkable: the official backup mouthguard he made for Manny “PacMan” Pacquiao before the “Fight of the Century” with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in Las Vegas, May 2, 2015.

It’s striped in Pacquiao’s colors, shaped by his bite. It never touched the ring, but it waited in the corner that night, ready if needed.

It is his—saliva and all. 

Strange as it sounds, it feels more personal than any autograph.

Posters fade, ink smears, but a mouthguard belongs to no one but the fighter.

And here’s the part that hits home: my father was there too, covering that night as a reporter. Pacquiao and Mayweather in the ring, my father at ringside, Dr. Ed in the corner, and myself now the keeper of the mouthguard—it feels like all those threads tied themselves into one story.

Today, the language of keepsakes has shifted. My father’s generation leaned toward scrapbooks, clippings, magazines, with autographs sprinkled in from the 1950s through the nineties.

All of it became stories they told later on.

My fascination has leaned toward gloves, programs, books—and yes, even a mouthguard.

Fans today lift their phones, lean in, and snap a selfie. Faster, flashier, instantly shared. But the impulse hasn’t really changed. Whether ink on a program, sweat on a glove, blood on trunks, or pixels in the cloud—we’re all reaching for the same thing: proof that we stood near greatness, even if just for a moment.

Some people laugh at holding on to something like that. But that’s the paradox of collecting. The most meaningful pieces are usually the plain ones: a note folded in a drawer, a glove stiff with dried sweat, a mouthguard still marked by teeth. Each one holds memory. Or maybe it holds us.

In the end I hear my father’s words:

We are guardians and keepers of memories. Share it.

And that thought pulls everything together—Boxiana, Mr. Fiske’s archives, Ali’s photo, the Levinson gloves, Pacquiao’s mouthguard, even today’s selfies. None of it is truly ours. We keep these things for a while, then pass them on.

It was my father who introduced me to Dr. Ed dela Vega, whose hands crafted Pacquiao’s mouthguard. And it was my father who pointed me toward the best editor I could ask for—the man who brings these stories alive for readers around the world: Mr. Dong Secuya, founder of PhilBoxing.com. In his work, as in my father’s and Dr. Ed’s, the same truth shows itself: we are caretakers of memory, not owners, bound by the duty to share.

Maybe that’s our role.

To keep boxing’s song alive—verse by verse, artifact by artifact: autographs, gloves, books, and mouthguards, saliva and all.

Notes of Appreciation

This article has been previously published on PhilBoxing.com and can be found through this link https://philboxing.com/news/story-175138.html

With gratitude, we express our solemn promise to be stewards of some memorabilia shared by friends like the honorable Dr. Ed dela Vega, whose contributions to the history of Philippine Boxing History often goes unmentioned.

Mr. Manny Pacquiao’s mouthpiece, crafted and designed by Doc Ed will be featured in our upcoming exhibit in San Francisco this summer 2026.

Acknowledgements:

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