By Cliff Rold
Photo © Chris Cozzone/FightWireImages.com
Nothing in boxing is ever 100-percent given. Manny Pacquiao (44-3-2, 35 KO, #1 at 130 lbs. Ring Magazine) defeating, probably knocking out, Marco Antonio Barrera (63-5, 42 KO, #3) for a second time this Saturday on HBO Pay-Per-View, live from Las Vegas, is pretty close.
Their first fight was a one-sided 11th round stoppage in favor of the Philippines favorite son in 2003. Four years later, Pacquiao, 28, appears still near his prime while Barrera, 33, has shown evidence of being well past his. Unless Pacquiao shows up distracted or out of shape, this one should be a thrilling but one-sided show.
Certainly the fans won’t react that way. There were some who felt Barrera earned a win in a decision loss against Juan Manuel Marquez in his last outing. Off that and his reputation, Barrera will have his believers, those who can’t help but think that the great old warrior can summon one last miracle. Boxing has long thrived on that sort of hope. It sells.
And ultimately that’s why we’re seeing this bout this weekend. It’s a business bout more than a competitive one and for Pacquiao, whose business has been mired in contract disputes between Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions, it at least gets him back in the ring. He’ll make a nice chunk of change for a fight that, when the names are read, sounds better than it is. In the long run, it isn’t the worst thing. This column isn’t about the long run.
Pacquiao’s run from 2003 to now has been a remarkable one. His first victory over Barrera made him the first, and only, man in history to capture the lineal World Flyweight (112) and World Featherweight crowns in his career. Coupled with his epic draw against Juan Manuel Marquez in 2004 and 2-1 victory margin in a series with the legendary Erik Morales from 2005-06, Pacquiao emerged as the only man in the race with Floyd Mayweather for pound-for-pound supremacy. In the eyes of some, including myself, he passed him in 2006.
That had as much to do with what Mayweather wasn’t doing as it did with what Manny was. From 2003-05, Mayweather fought a string of foes who couldn’t test him or, in the case of Henry Bruseles, didn’t belong in the ring with him. Astute observers who had already lived through the Roy Jones years thought they saw the same song being played again and soured on the prospect. A great talent was coasting with no end in sight while Pacquiao was delivering great theatre with superb actors.
Then the end came. In his last three fights, Mayweather has faced the last two men to hold the World Welterweight championship (Zab Judah, Carlos Baldomir), winning that title himself. He has also captured a decision over the game’s biggest star, Oscar De La Hoya, and now has the undefeated World Jr. Welterweight champion, Ricky Hatton, on tap. It’s a resume worthy of his talent with perhaps bigger fights still to come in 2008 should he defeat Hatton.
Pacquiao’s resume is beginning to shrink in comparison. The Barrera rematch will be the fifth bout in seven where Pacquiao faces a foe coming off a loss. On most of the prior occasions, that was excused. The fights and opponents were evidence for those who feel that losses are overrated in the modern era.
His first bout with Morales, Pacquiao’s only loss since moving up from Flyweight in 2000, came on the heels of Morales’ narrow rubber match loss to Barrera in the 2004 Fight of the Year. Morales-Pacquiao II came on the heels of Morales’ one-sided drubbing at the hands of Zahir Raheem but at least there was the revenge factor for Manny. Pacquiao followed that with a bout last summer against an Oscar Larios who had been dropped and then stopped on a cut against Israel Vasquez after a few years as the standard bearer at 122 lbs. in his previous bout. Losing to Vasquez has been shown to be no sin.
In each of these cases, Pacquiao was facing men who, off losses, were more game than Floyd foes like Sharmba Mitchell and Arturo Gatti off wins. The rubber match with Morales seemed unnecessary at the time but, given Morales’ recent effort against lightweight David Diaz, may actually have been as impressive as it looked.
This bout with Barrera may be the point where a line of excess is crossed. Pacquiao’s only other bout this year was against a fringe contender from a division below, Jorge Solis, and that he follows it with Barrera is little to be excited about. Last year at this time, Barrera-Pacquiao II would have been exciting but not after Barrera-Marquez.
What was seen in the ring in March was a solid professional fight between fighters inching towards or just past their expiration date. Barrera faded badly down the stretch and the wear in his legs was hard to miss. I’m not saying Barrera-Marquez was not a good fight; I am saying it was a good fight between old fighters. That Marquez, 34, still adorns many a pound-for-pound list is more evidence of the unreliability of such tests in the two-fights-a-year era. It takes longer to knock fighters off, especially when they have enough name value to sit around milking it to the detriment of the young and hungry.
And if it sounds like I’m saying Marquez looks worn and old enough to also be almost non-competitive with Pacquiao at this point, you’re reading correctly.
While Morales, Barrera and Marquez are great names there has to be a point where reality sets in. The round robin that has captured the hearts of boxing fans for much of this decade is on its last wheel and the rubber is wearing fast. Given the victory for Marquez over Barrera in March, the fight we should be seeing Saturday night is Pacquiao-Marquez II. Instead, mostly because of promotional interests, we’re getting a rematch we don’t need in pursuit of the last dollars Barrera can provide. That means that Pacquiao-Marquez II will likely come next and the chance to see Manny facing dangerous starving tigers like Jorge Linares (24-0, 15 KO, #9 at featherweight), (Humberto Soto (43-5-2, 27 KO, #6), Joan Guzman (27-0, 17 KO) and Edwin Valero (22-0, 22 KO) remains still off in an unknown distance.
At least Guzman and Soto have willingly manned up to face each other in an excellent November match.
So prepare for a blow-out this Saturday and then ask yourself if this is the sort of test a fighter considered one of the two best in the world need pursue beyond the obvious dollar. If Mayweather was to be held to a higher standard of competition during some dog days in his career, certainly the salad days of Pacquiao require the same.
Peter Returns: For $50 less than it will take to see Pacquiao continue his path through the Great Mexican Farewell tour, Nigerian heavyweight Samuel Peter (28-1, 22 KO, #2, “interim” WBC titlist) returns this weekend with a fight against Jameel McCline (38-7, 23 KO, unrated) of West Palm Beach, Florida on Showtime. I’m not sure how good a fight it will be but it can’t be any worse that the anti-climax that was to be a battle with Kazakhstan’s Oleg Maskaev (34-5, 26 KO, #3, other WBC titlist). Maskaev was probably going to get brutally knocked out. It’s what he’s always done against any top heavyweight not named Hasim Rahman and, if Peter-Maskaev ever comes off, expect more of the same.
The real story of this whole Peter-Maskaev debacle throughout 2007 has been the backdoor machinations involving the WBC, Vitali Klitschko and Team Maskaev led by Dennis “America Needs You” Rappaport in trying to delay for as long as possible Peter’s shot at the belt. When Masakev injured himself in training for this Saturday’s intended, Peter was given ‘interim’ champion status. Whatever.
I know we’re all supposed to feel bad for Peter, who paid his sanctioning fees in not one but two ‘elimination’ bouts that promised immediate WBC title shots only to almost be denied his opportunity. I can’t. After all this garbage cost him most of this year, keeping him out of the ring and away from violence adoring eyes since a January rematch victory over James Toney, Team Peter will line up to pay yet another sanctioning fee this weekend.
Think about that. After being jerked around on two elimination bouts and then being told that they might have to wait for Vitali “I got another owwie” Klitschko to go into a training camp that he probably wouldn’t have finished anyways so he could fight Maskaev first, Team Peter was still in there fighting for their title shot rights.
Valiant I guess, but I’d have rather seen them sue for whatever possible and never give another dime to Jose Sulaiman and the WBC. What’s the old adage…”screw me once blah blah blah…” Fighters and their camps get screwed by sanctioning body messes all the time and then just get in line for more of the same. I understand why; the bulk of the mainstream sports media treats all these belts like they’re of some sort of real value and so by proxy they have value at the negotiating table. Still, I’m so over making these sort of boxing circumstances sound tragic. Complicity doesn’t merit compassion.
Great Boxing: Moving away from messes and potential mismatches, it’s time to bask in the glow of what was one of the great experiences of my short life as a boxing writer. The arena experience of the World Middleweight championship war between new king Kelly Pavlik (32-0, 29 KO) of Youngstown, Ohio and now former champion Jermain Taylor, 29, (27-1-1, 17 KO) of Little Rock, Arkansas was as good as it gets. The fallout from the bout might be even better.
Make no mistake. If handled properly, and Top Rank has done nothing but handle him properly, Kelly Pavlik could become the superstar that the U.S. boxing scene has been waiting for. At only 25, Pavlik has all the qualities people love in a fighter. He gets hit; he gets knocked down; he gets up; he destroys. Most important, Pavlik has proven so far to be a winner under pressure. He certainly has the czar of Top Rank, Bob Arum, excited.
I asked Arum if he feels he has a potential heir to the superstar throne of Oscar De La Hoya and he didn’t flinch in responding affirmatively.
That’s not to say that the road to superstardom will be easy. Both the Middleweight and Super Middleweight (168 lb.) divisions are loaded with a mix of talented veterans and dangerous young lions. At Middleweight, of particular note is Arthur Abraham (24-0, 19 KO, IBF titlist), a rugged Armenian based in Germany with wins over Howard Eastman, Edison Miranda and Kingsley Ikeke.
Abraham was one of the first names out of Pavlik’s mouth when the future was pondered. At the press conference, I asked Pavlik how it felt to hold a lineal championship once worn by men like Harry Greb, Ray Robinson and Marvin Hagler. His answer was a revealing look at a fighter who wants to live up to that legacy. “It’s great. This is a dream come true…(but) to say that I’m the undisputed, I’m probably not. You still got Arthur Abraham out there and Felix Sturm (28-2, 12 KO, WBA titlist)…I still want those belts in my name. Once I get those, then I’ll be undisputed….If I can get those belts, then I’ll have done my job at middleweight.”
Kelly need not worry. He is THE champion at middleweight, having defeated the man who defeated Bernard Hopkins, but if he sees mountains to climb in two quality alphabelt titlists like Sturm and Abraham, there’s no need to deter him. Each of those is an excellent fight for both Pavlik and the fans.
Whether an Abraham fight is immediately realistic remains to be seen. Bouts with big ticket fringe contenders like John Duddy and Sergio Mora would likely build Pavlik’s name and bank account without posing great risk. Arum took a pragmatic approach. “I would love to fight (Abraham) but if he’s going to say ‘Hey, I want half the money’ who needs him?”
There’s also the issue of a rematch with Taylor. On the heels of the best battle for the Middleweight crown since James Toney and Mike McCallum battled to a draw in 1991, a rematch clause makes almost certain that we will see these two again. Arum iterated that he didn’t see that fight as next but did see it sooner than later.
Jermain Taylor would like that fight right away. I asked Taylor, after being only the third man in history to capture his title without a loss, if he’d like to be the first fighter since Nino Benvenuti to regain the true 160 lb. crown. Taylor laughed. “To be honest with you, I didn’t even know all that,” He stated, causing the room to laugh with him in a moment of brevity for a fighter clearly in pain beyond the physical. The moment didn’t last long as Taylor stated resolutely afterward, “I will get my belts back.”
His effort to do so could be the richest middleweight fight in years. This fight got me more calls prior to the fight from part-time boxing viewers than any other fight this year save De La Hoya-Mayweather and more than that afterward. If that sort of buzz resulted in a proper audience, you can guarantee that all of them would come back for more.
Should Pavlik hold onto the title, should he survive a vengeful Taylor or an Abraham, an even bigger fight looms. Considering the ticket sales occurring for 39-0 Dane Mikkel Kessler’s challenge of king Super Middleweight king Joe Calzaghe (43-0, 32 KO) on November 3rd, I asked Pavlik, his trainer Jack Loew and Arum about the possibility of facing the winner of the European superfight. I also asked just how money could be in the pot for such a bout a year from now. Every one, to a man, lit up. Pavlik smiled and said “A lot.”
Loew noted that he expected Kessler to defeat Calzaghe and joked that he’d be happy with his own paycheck for a Pavlik-Kessler bout. There’s little doubt that with proper build, and all parties still undefeated, Pavlik versus the Calzaghe-Kessler winner could literally print money.
Arum may have summed up best what boxing fans will hope for in the coming days and months from the new champion. “Kelly’s gonna’ fight ‘em all man. He’s gonna’ be the biggest fighter in boxing and you don’t become the biggest fighter in boxing fighting junior middleweights who run around the ring and you can’t him them. You become the biggest fighter in the world by fighting tough guys who you whack out.”
In 2007, Pavlik has delivered on just that sort of promise. He has escalated his level of competition from rugged Jose Luis Zertuche to the dangerous Edison Miranda through to winning the World title. All three bouts have left fans on the edge of their seats. Boxing fans have every reason to believe Pavlik will keep them there and that’s a ride worth looking forward to.
Cliff’s Notes…
Undercard Delight: While I’m clearly not thrilled with the competitive prospects for Pacquiao-Barrera II, this is still a show well worth you pay-per-view dollar. The undercard features three excellent matches, the best of which may be a Jr. Welterweight battle between Panchito Bojado and Contender season two runner-up Steve Forbes. This week isn’t as good on paper as last week, or even next week’s Juan Diaz-Julio Diaz lightweight battle, but it’s still a solid week of boxing…
Dawson: Following another victory for light heavyweight Chad Dawson (25-0, 17 KO, #5, WBC titlist), last Saturday on Showtime versus Epifanio Mendoza (28-5, 24 KO, unrated), it’s clear that this young man is the most likely candidate for future of the division. Unfortunately, he’s going to need a fight with Ring Magazine titlist Bernard Hopkins to prove it to most. It’s going to take some creative thinking to get it.
Forget Antonio Tarver. Hopkins is the real prize. No one asked me, but my take is simple. Dawson's team should do whatever they have to do to get a unification bout with WBO titlist and lineal World champion Zsolt Erdei and, if Dawson were to win, start promoting him as the REAL light heavyweight champ. Sure, lots would call BS but it would spark all sorts of crazy fan interest in the base and make him far and away the number one contender.
Hell, if he beat Erdei, and I'm in charge of Team Dawson, I'd send press releases about it once a week, go to Hopkins house with a camera and a big sign that says "Real Light Heavy Champ", make a power point explaining the lineage, put it all on YouTube and spam every boxing outlet on Earth. Go Liston-Clay. It might be crazy enough to work.
Final flurry: 7-foot mammoth Russian heavyweight Nicolay Valuev (47-1, 34 KO) returned with an easy win over Canadian Jean-Francois Bergeron (27-1, 19 KO, unrated). A rematch with Ruslan Chagaev may be next…2004 Olympian Andre Berto (20-0, 17 KO) looked sensational against veteran David Estrada (21-3, 12 KO) in the televised opener to Pavlik-Taylor and it was one hell of a fight. That said, if Berto doesn’t pick up some head movement, rumors and some evidence of his shaky chin could become biblical fact when he faces men with more pop in their fists…One last thing. A spirited debate broke out on press row Saturday about December’s Floyd Mayweather-Ricky Hatton bout. The debate wasn’t about whether Floyd would win (most, including me, agreed that a Mayweather victory is likely) but on how competitive the fight will be. I think Hatton has a shot and at least keeps it close; others disagreed. Only boxing lovers would argue about how bad a guy is going to lose at full volume. Hilarious stuff.
Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com