Smell Like Manny Pacquiao With 'MP8: Scent Of A Champion'

You can't make this stuff up. Or maybe you could, but either way, you don't have to. Like many ego maniacal athletes and pop stars before him (Michael Jordan, Britney Spears, etc.), Manny Pacquiao has launched his own men's fragrance. This is the sort of product you launch towards the tail end of your athletic glory years. Coincidentally, it's the last moment to take advantage of elite levels of fame and grift the last remnants of disposable income from adoring fans before they realize buying cologne endorsed by and imaged after an athlete is idiotic.

I'd rather shower in Febreze for a week than be caught dead wearing this cat piss, but I'm sure there's a market for it. The L.A. Times reports:

Called MP8 Scent of The Champion (a reference to the boxer's eight world boxing titles in eight weight divisions) the fragrance was developed by Neil Harris of Harris Fragrances and perfumer Chris Buccellato of Custom Essence, and it's described as having "top notes of bergamot and lemon, middle notes of lavender, vetiver, nutmeg and sage, and base notes of sweet musk, vanilla and amber."

With the the lingering fumes of another celebrity scent still fresh in my olfactory memory, I didn't exactly have high hopes for a pugilist-promoted perfume, so it was a pleasant surprise when I got the chance to spritz some around the office for the obligatory sniff test. (On a side note, as a result of such testings, the Image staff does inhabit the best-smelling cube farm in the building -- a top note of printer's ink, middle notes of citrus, rose and tobacco, a base note of fresh-cut grass and a hint of deadline desperation. Someday we'll try to bottle it.)

The fresh citrus scent makes the first impression: smooth, clean and in your face (in keeping with the boxing metaphor, I wish I could call it a "punch of citrus," but it was a lot more nuanced than that -- a jab, perhaps?). That's followed by a woodiness instantly reminiscent of English Leather cologne that, within a minute or so, gives way to a heavy but not unpleasant muskiness.

More important, the MP8 fragrance found favor with the women in the office (one co-worker even quipped -- unprompted -- "It smells like a winner!")

Manny Pacquiao: Smelling Like A Winner Since 2011. Now available for non-winners with $55 everywhere.