By CompuBox
On February 14, 1951 welterweight champion Sugar Ray Robinson stepped up in weight against middleweight king Jake LaMotta, a thickly built chopping block with an iron chin fortified by an iron will.
The peerless Robinson, who entered the fight as the recognized pound-for-pound best, broke open a close fight in the ninth with a beautifully brutal assault that showcased both Robinson’s brilliance and LaMotta’s stubbornness. Finally, late in the 13th round, referee Frank Sikora ended the carnage with the defiant Bronx Bull badly beaten but still on his feet.
This past Saturday night another pound-for-pound king, three-division champion Manny Pacquiao, tackled WBC lightweight king David Diaz, a barrel-chested stout hearted warrior who pitted his LaMotta-esque will to win against the Filipino icon’s luminous talent. Unfortunately for the man nicknamed "Dangerous," he met the same fate as LaMotta as he was sliced, diced and dissected before falling victim to one final concussive blow in the ninth led to the fight’s stoppage. Unlike LaMotta, Diaz ended the fight with his bloodied face kissing the canvas but his fighting spirit remained uncompromised.
Pacquiao’s title-winning performance was an aesthetic and mathematical masterpiece. The new champion landed 230 of his 788 punches to Diaz’s 90 of 463, which means two things. First, Pacquiao threw 36 more punches per round and landed nearly 16 more. And second, Pacquiao averaged nearly 88 punches per round – 38 percent higher than the lightweight average of 64 – while Diaz averaged 51 – 20 percent fewer than the norm.
The fact that both men were southpaws freed them to showcase their right hands. Pacquiao threw 298 jabs (33 per round and nine above the lightweight average) and landed 50 for 17 percent accuracy while Diaz fired 144 (16 per round and eight below the divisional norm). But it was Pacquiao’s spectacular effectiveness with hooks and uppercuts that made this performance the most complete of his career.
Pacquiao was 180 of 490 in power punches (37 percent) while Diaz was 59 of 319 (18 percent), which means that the Filipino averaged nearly 14 more power connects per round. His slashing power shots opened cuts on the bridge of Diaz’s nose, near the right ear and above his right eye while crimson flowed from both nostrils.
Diaz admitted, both in the corner and after the fight, that Pacquiao’s hand speed was too much for him to handle. Pacquiao established that speed early by using his feet to create punching angles, then fired free-flowing cluster bombs. Pacquiao threw 91 punches in the first (landing 19), then followed with a 35 of 114 performance in round two (including 34 of 83 in power punches). From then on, it was off to the races for the "Pac Man" as he showcased every element of his scintillating skill set.
Over the first four rounds, Pacquiao averaged an incredible 64 power punches per round (far above the divisional average of 40) and out-landed Diaz 80-30 in that stretch.
Diaz’s only statistical success was that he landed more jabs in rounds two through four (a 16-8 edge) and earned a 5-5 tie in the fifth, but Pacquiao eventually trumped him by sweeping every category from round six on. The largest statistical landslide occurred in round eight when Pacquiao landed 36 of his 100 punches to Diaz’s 4 of 38, including a 28-3 bulge in power connects. Diaz’s high water mark in terms of connects was 14 in rounds two and three while Pacquiao’s lowest connect total was 17 in the fourth.
Even the hardest of chins and the deepest reservoirs of courage have breaking points, and Diaz reached his in the ninth as a left cross he didn’t see felled him. Even LaMotta absorbed only four rounds’ worth of Robinson’s best guns while Diaz fielded Pacquiao’s from the very start. While Diaz is no LaMotta in terms of greatness, it wouldn’t be completely absurd to rank Pacquiao’s performance on this night to the best Robinson ever produced.
With the victory Pacquiao joins Thomas Hearns, Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Pernell Whitaker, Leo Gamez, Oscar de la Hoya, Roy Jones and Oscar de la Hoya as four-division champions. Because Pacquiao looked better than ever – both in terms of physique and execution – at his career highest weight, historians must now start to determine Pacquiao’s place among the all-time greats, pound-for-pound as well as pounding-for-pounding.
